Covering domestic violence: How the O.J. Simpson case shaped reporting of domestic violence in the news media

This article examines how the Simpson case affected newspaper coverage of d omestic violence. We analyzed the frequency with which domestic violence wa s covered and the content of that coverage in the New York Times, the Inqui rer and Philadelphia Daily News. As expected, the number of non-Simpson dom estic violence stories increased immediately after the event but declined i n the majority of newspapers afterwards. The hypothesis that domestic viole nce story coverage would shift from incident focused to socially focused re porting was not generally supported. Social coverage was present across all domestic violence stories before the Simpson event, and with only minor va riations, the overall coverage content did not change.