Biased Coverage of Bias Crime: Examining Differences in Media Coverage of Hate Crimes and Terrorism
Description
News media differentially cover violence based on social identity. How does media bias apply to terrorist attacks—typically “upward crime” where perpetrators hold less power than targets—that are also hate crimes—typically “downward crime”? We compare coverage of incidents that are both terrorist attacks and hate crimes to that of incidents that are just terrorism in the U.S. from 2006 to 2015. Attacks that are also hate crimes receive less media attention. Articles are more likely to reference hate crimes when the perpetrator is unknown and more likely to reference terrorism when the perpetrator is non-White in some models.