The blame game: news, blame, and young homicide victims

Media have represented blame in homicide cases as attributable to a victim or an offender; we provide a more nuanced category of shared blame. We examine stories covering young homicide victims to demonstrate how shared blame is operationalized in print news, noting stark differences across a victim’s race and gender. We conduct a content analysis of the Orlando Sentinel newspaper and police reports from Seminole County and Sanford, Florida, from 2000 to 2012. Stark racial and gender differences are apparent in the way the content is framed and how the victims are depicted. The newspaper’s representation of young African American males is consistent with existing stereotypes of the “criminal black man.” We discuss the larger implications of our findings and how our results apply to high-profile killings of young homicide victims including Trayvon Martin.