New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 2006, 35(1): 28-35

This article discusses a research study that assessed the extent and nature of newspaper coverage of sexual offending in 2003. Specifically, the study aimed to investigate (a) the sort of themes that are most prominent in newspaper coverage of sex offending; (b) how sexual offending and sexual offenders are framed in the news media; (c) the relative proportion of news articles devoted to specific, high profile cases; and (d) the prevalence of different sources for news articles on sexual offending. The New Zealand Herald, The Press, and The Dominion were coded on a range of variables including article type, topic and frame of article, any reference to treatment, sources quoted in the report, and the type of offence mentioned. The results showed that of 377 articles relating to sexual offending most were either descriptions of offences or court reports (31.6%) or related to specific offences or offenders (35.3%). Very few articles focused on treatment (3.2%) or education and prevention (2.4%). Police, lawyers, and judges were the most common source for news articles (N=220). There was little input from mental health professionals (N=56) or academics (N=12). The authors posit that crime reporting in prior research shows a disproportionate number of high profile cases and this was found to be the case with the present study where nine cases captured 22% of the total news coverage on sexual offending. Implications and the direction for future research are discussed.