Crime report

[TXStrat]

KSAT seemed to be informing their followers of current crime trends in their viewing area. Oh the shock, oh the horror. At the other end of the spectrum you have people that will complain about any story that they see painting the San Antonio metro area in a negative light. The truth lies in the middle. There is good, there is bad, life in a large metro area anywhere is like that. I surely don't see anything wrong with a local news network informing their viewers of current crime trends so they can mitigate potential risk.

[teenwolf80]

Originally Posted by TXStrat

KSAT seemed to be informing their followers of current crime trends in their viewing area. Oh the shock, oh the horror. At the other end of the spectrum you have people that will complain about any story that they see painting the San Antonio metro area in a negative light. The truth lies in the middle. There is good, there is bad, life in a large metro area anywhere is like that. I surely don't see anything wrong with a local news network informing their viewers of current crime trends so they can mitigate potential risk.

Again, not my point.

The article was meant to be sensational. They use raw numbers versus percentage because it's a bigger, scarier number. If they said, home burglaries went up xx% from last year, it's just not as effective.

[TXStrat]

Originally Posted by teenwolf80

Again, not my point.

The article was meant to be sensational. They use raw numbers versus percentage because it's a bigger, scarier number. If they said, home burglaries went up xx% from last year, it's just not as effective.

They are a news organization, they depend on site traffic and viewership. That is how that works. See any other news organization in the world. Nothing new here.

[todd00]

Originally Posted by teenwolf80

My point wasn't the fact that home burglaries are up, my point was that KSAT choose to focus on that aspect and that aspect alone.

They could have given a detailed report about overall crime either increasing or decreasing or point out that _____ crime decreased.

They didn't because they a sensational fear mongering station and have been for over a decade now. Tabloid journalism.

They focused on one issue, burglary and home security. If they really wanted to play the fear mongering game why didn't they mention the total number of burglaries last year rather than just the number increase? People may not realize there were 15,668 burglaries last year and be more shocked by that number than there being a 2 percent increase. The point of this story was about security, that's why they spoke to the prevention officer. The short article is a pretty good advertisement for Protect America too, as their name is specifically mentioned and highlights a bit of what they offer. The Guy from Protect America is the one that mentioned the increase is about 2 percent in the story. It would have been nice if they had included a link to the FBI figures. No, it's not a great article but I don't think the aim was to scare people.

Tabloid journalism is the norm today. Ya look at a hard news story of some tragedy and on the side you see a mix of real news with celebrity trash entertainment gossip. I just hate that, if I wanted to read the it I would turn to that section. Along with that it's common to find the writer did not even proof their work. But it's better than the news sites that charge to look at their online paper and you still get the same tabloid oriented set up.

FBI — Table 4 - Oklahoma through Wisconsin