The crime was sensational, the kind that local TV-news operations salivate over. A 14-year-old boy had shot himself to death in a parked car beside a freeway moments after killing his mother in their suburban Minneapolis home. Like every other station in the Twin Cities, WCCO-TV gave the story prominent play on its early-evening newscast. But, astonishingly, the station showed none of the gruesome footage that was available -- a shot of the boy slumped in his car, another of his mother's covered body being carried from their home. Instead the story was told by old-fashioned talking heads: reporters describing the events; child therapists talking about why such tragedies occur.
WCCO, a well-respected, top-rated CBS affiliate, is pioneering an unlikely trend in local TV news. While most stations, as well as tabloid shows like Hard Copy and A Current Affair, revel in outrageous crimes and grisly violence, a small but growing number of news operations are trying to stand out by taking a different tack: playing down violent crime, eschewing graphic footage and trying to make their shows "family sensitive." At least 11 stations -- in such markets as Seattle, Miami, Albuquerque and Oklahoma City -- have adopted this kinder, gentler approach since the beginning of the year.
The format is too new to have generated any definitive ratings data. But proponents say it comes in response to surveys showing that viewers are fed up with local TV's obsession with lurid crimes. Especially in such cities as New York, Los Angeles and Miami, even routine murders and rapes are given the TV equivalent of screaming headlines almost every day of the week. "The coverage of crime has become totally disproportionate to what's really happening in society," says Joseph Angotti, a former senior vice president of NBC News and now a professor of communications at the University of Miami. According to a survey conducted by Angotti's students, one Miami station -- Fox affiliate WSVN -- devoted fully 49% of its newscast time to crime during a typical week last November. So notorious has WSVN's crime fixation become that nine South Florida hotels have decided to black out some or all of the station's programming in their 2,640 guest rooms.
The family-sensitive alternative in Miami is being offered by WCIX-TV, a CBS affiliate currently No. 4 in the ratings. A recent early-evening newscast, for instance, featured a story about the tearful homecoming of 43 local students who were on an Amtrak train that derailed in North Carolina. Yet there were no shots of the deadly accident. Says Allen Shaklan, the station's general manager: "Rubbernecking coverage -- the stuff that causes people to stop and turn in disgust -- we won't do when youngsters may be watching."
The family-sensitive approach is typically confined to early-evening newscasts, with stronger material reserved for late-night programs. At WCNC-TV in Charlotte, North Carolina, however, the time lapse is only an hour: after a G-rated 5 p.m. show, the crime wave hits at 6 o'clock. The top story on a % recent 5 p.m. newscast concerned a local political candidate accused of doctoring his resume. Unmentioned was the discovery of a woman's dismembered body in a burning trash can; that was the lead story (sans graphic footage) at 6.