News coverage of intimate partner violence can shape public perception about abuse, and indirectly affect policies designed to prevent domestic violence and help battered women. But Distracted by Drama: How California Newspapers Portray Intimate Partner Violence, an in-depth new study released last week by the Berkeley Media Studies Group, finds that most intimate partner violence goes unreported, even in high quality newspapers. And the coverage of intimate partner violence that does appear in newspapers reflects only the most extreme cases of abuse. The study does note improvement in some aspects of domestic violence reporting in recent years.

"While Distracted by Drama shows improvement in how domestic violence is portrayed in newspapers, the media still fails to create an accurate portrayal of intimate partner violence," said Family Violence Prevention Fund President Esta Soler. "That distorted image makes it difficult for communities to address the issue and successfully support women and children who are experiencing abuse."

Distracted by Drama assesses how intimate partner violence is portrayed in newspapers and analyzes how coverage of the issue differs from coverage of other kinds of violence. Distracted by Drama also offers recommendations for reporters and editors on how to create an accurate picture of intimate partner violence, and for public health officials and advocates on how to better share their data and resources with the media.

"News coverage of intimate partner violence is important because we need an accurate picture of the problem before we can fix it. Now, the picture doesn't tell us enough about how widespread it is, how it begins. What does intimate partner violence look like when it doesn't end in death?" asked Lori Dorfman, DrPH, director of the Berkeley Media Studies Group and a co-author of Distracted by Drama. "We know newspapers can do better because, in these two papers, when they do cover intimate partner violence they avoid old stereotypes. Now they need to bring the whole picture into focus."

Distracted by Drama researchers analyzed all articles on intimate partner violence from the year 2000 that appeared in a nationally and regionally prominent newspaper, the Los Angeles Times and the San Jose Mercury News respectively. Researchers selected the Los Angeles Times and the San Jose Mercury News because the papers are located in counties with domestic violence death review teams. The study compares the newspapers' coverage of intimate partner violence with coverage of other crimes.

Distracted by Drama: How California Newspapers Portray Intimate Partner Violence was supported by a grant from The California Wellness Foundation as part of its Violence Prevention Initiative.

Findings

Among the study's conclusions:

Intimate partner violence is reported on less frequently than other forms of violence.
Compared to other violence, intimate partner violence did not receive press attention commensurate with its frequency as an arrest. In both newspapers, abuse did not get even the same minimal coverage received by other violence. The story per arrest ratio for coverage of other violence in the Los Angeles Times was more than ten times larger than the ratio for intimate partner violence stories (0.0773 compared to 0.007). The story per arrest ratio for coverage of other violence in the San Jose Mercury News was more than six times larger than the ratio for intimate partner violence stories (0.1799 compared to 0.0224).

Intimate partner violence is presented as more lethal than it is. Although there were far more intimate partner violence arrests than intimate partner violence homicides in 2000 (Los Angeles County had 49 homicides and Santa Clara had six), both newspapers were more likely to report on intimate partner violence homicides. Sixty-two percent of the intimate partner violence stories in the Los Angeles Times were on homicides; and 63 percent of the intimate partner violence stories in the Mercury News were on homicides.

Coverage of intimate partner violence is more murder-oriented than other violence coverage. While homicides are disproportionately covered by the news media, the pattern is even more extreme for intimate partner violence. Intimate partner violence coverage was ten times more murder-oriented than other violence reporting at the Los Angeles Times, and five times more murder-oriented at the Mercury News.

Intimate partner violence reporting rarely reflects blatant sexist stereotypes. Although past research indicted that batterers were frequently excused for their violent behavior in press coverage, Distracted by Drama found this not to be the case. Intimate partner violence reporting in the Los Angeles Times and the Mercury News included low levels of both suspect mitigation and victim blame. Shifting the blame from batterers was rare and often merely implied in both newspapers' coverage. The report also finds that articles that blamed victims of intimate partner violence for the abuse constituted less than four percent of the articles in both papers combined. But victims of intimate partner violence were still blamed more often in the newspapers' coverage of abuse than victims of other forms of violence.

Distracted by Drama cautions that the lack of stereotypes in the newspapers' coverage may not illustrate a national trend. Both newspapers are in counties with domestic violence death review committees that may have progressive approaches to intimate partner violence. The study calls on the news media to avoid cultural and gender-based stereotypes and to encourage reporting that serves as a civic resource for reducing intimate partner violence.

Based on this research, newspapers face a difficult task in bringing typical, rather than extreme, cases of intimate partner violence into the news. To report intimate partner violence as the significant, costly, and tragic social ­ rather than personal or family ­ problem that it is, Distracted by Drama suggests that reporters enterprise local stories about the range of intimate partner violence and draw on public health departments and advocates for data and context.

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