Fewer than a third of the 684 homicides committed in Chicago in 1987 were reported in either of the two metropolitan Chicago dailies. Both papers, as expected, were more likely to cover "high amplitude" crimes that involved more than one victim. They were also more likely to report homicides ifthe offender was male and the victim female, and less likely to do so if the victim was Afrcan-American or Hispanic. Additional factors aflected whether an individual paper would cover a story. Once selected for coverage, only the "amplitude" factor consistently predicted the prominence a story received.This study focuses on the coverage of homicide in two Chicago daily newspapers. Our point of departure is the realization that as the volume of homicides increases in American cities it becomes increasingly difficult for dailies to cover them case by case. This in turn necessitates either a selection of incidents, or a different type of reporting strategy, such as focusing on group rather than individual identities and circumstances.In this paper we examine selection decisions by comparing the universe of Chicago homicides in 1987 with those reported in two Chicago daily newspapers, the Tribune and the Sun-Times. Of 684 homicides investigated in 1987 by the Chicago police, 212 were reported in one orboth of these dailies. We analyze whether this subset represents the total.
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