It's 11 o'clock and I'm Paul Moyer.
And I'm Kelly Lang.
Our top story then, 11 o'clock tonight, a wild scene in Venice as police chase two shooting suspects.
The woman is in a coma at Southern Regional Medical Center.
The gunman is out there somewhere on the run.
Topping our news tonight, what is believed to be a domestic fight turns into a shooting spree.
The newsroom mantra is, if it bleeds, it leads.
...at least three other people are wounded.
He was kidnapped, shot, and left for dead.
Tabloid TV's front page, it's glitzy, fast-paced, high ratings, through a high body count.
Now he's been arrested for his death.
This is someone's son. He has two bullets in his head.
We have to protect ourself right here.
Music from NYPD Blue.
Crime news can look a lot like entertainment.
Join the early shift at 6.30 and the late shift at 11.
The dark black is crime coverage.
One Los Angeles station, a study showed, spent over half its newscasts on crime.
Others came close.
One broadcasts a body count.
That could be construed as a way of making the community aware in the way of the Iran hostage crisis.
It's also a way, I think, of kind of tweaking people's fear on a nightly basis.
Studies show violent crime is down slightly, but one study of ten TV stations showed violence in stories up 244 percent from 1992 to 1994.
You're misleading the public, and you're distorting their understanding of common dangers.
And that's crazy. That's destructive, it's irresponsible.
If the audience perceives that we are just scaring the hell out of them with untruth, they will turn to one of the increasing number of choices that they have on the television dial.
The fact of the matter is we're not doing that.
We came to Peoria, a famous test market, to see what was on TV there.
Crime? Sure.
Too much crime news? Marie Smith and Helen O'Halloran live just outside Peoria.
That gets people all worked up, scared, you know, what might happen here.
Really, I think they show too much.
I'm afraid to go into Peoria, yes. You never know what's going to happen in there.
OK, have a safe tour.
Too much crime news? Peoria Chief of Police Arthur Kelly.
I'm convinced that if you could get everyone who wanted to commit suicide to do it in a public place where the media could be present, we would have like a TV show called Suicide Today.
And people would watch it.
Too much crime news? Paul Gullifer is professor of communications at Bradley University in Peoria.
My biggest concern is that we're creating a country of people who are actually insensitive to violence, and that's kind of frightening.
Gullifer and his journalism students talk about the problem. Stations have to make money.
That's a business, and they need the points, and they need the ratings. So I can see where the producers and directors who want the sensational video and sensational stories come from.
It's very easy to throw your camera up at the latest shooting, and you know, you've got an easy piece for the news.
But I think to go inside with that, you have to have background pieces on reasons why you have the crime in the community, and also you have to focus on some solutions.
Maybe there's a way to do that. In Seattle, this focus group told KIRO-TV they preferred non-crime stories.
The man you sent to prison for rape says he's coming back to kill you.
They have meters on this story the lines went down disapproval.
I would like to be respected, I think, as a viewer.
In Miami, there's a clear test. WSVN Channel 7 does tabloid news. Hot pace, hot graphics and all.
It was a murderous night here in South Florida. First, Hollywood, where a man was dragged to his death.
Overtown now, Miami police saying a woman known only as Stacy is dead.
In plantation, police say a 25-year-old man was shot and killed early this morning at this IHOP restaurant on the town.
On this prostitute murder story, they used a reenactment, clearly labeled.
7's formula has worked, though some hotels banned its broadcasts, fearing they would frighten tourists. Channel 6 is trying something different.
Taking action to bring you a family-sensitive newscast.
What is family-sensitive news? It doesn't mean no crime, it does mean less crime.
One evening last year, Channel 7 started with crime.
Next on 7 News at 6, the search for a missing Rivia Rabich girl has investigators scouring everything from canals to videotape.
A father charged in the shooting death of his two-year-old son.
Family-sensitive 6 did those stories, too. 7 continued with crime.
A West Palm Beach baby snatched from her very own crib is back home tonight.
Three armed men forced their way into an apartment and terrorized the people inside.
We're working on a breaking story this hour out of Lexington, Kentucky, word of racial violence in Lexington.
And so on. Channel 6 went to other news.
On the health watch, another reason to keep your weight down, it could help keep you moving later in life.
Crime used to be 18% of its newscasts, is now 10%.
We consciously looked for crimes that had a broad effect on people.
Or crimes where there might be some kind of resolution, where we could come up with a solution-oriented report rather than just the facts, ma'am.
It's not always easy to leave out the bloody close-ups.
Tape editor Lori Ditt.
A lot of the pictures you have are very violent pictures, and you can't show them.
And so sometimes what you're left with, I mean physically just filling the time, what you're left with, there isn't much there.
Six changed styles eight months ago in hopes of improving its ratings. So?
People are saying that they're switching, but it's not reflected just yet in our ratings.
But we believe, if our viewers are telling us the truth, that we're going to realize the ratings increase probably within a year.
Six Action News, named best newscast in Florida by the...
So there are alternatives to tabloids.
This is AC. I have OJ in the car.
Anyway, the Archie NDA's Dave Bartlett argues 95 million people saw the famous OJ chase.
The viewers decide.
Ultimately, we are responsible to our public. We are responsible to the audience. They set the rules.
His name is Kato. Nicole's dog may be the only witness to the murders.
What the dog saw.
Yeah, but can we get an interview?