All the news that can scare you

The current issue of Skeptic has an article critiquing modern news coverage. Among the examples of how the news gets it very wrong is its coverage of child molestation.

Media coverage has precisely inverted both the reality and risk of child sexual assault.

It explains:

According to the U. S. Department of Justice, in a given year there are about 88,000 documented cases of sexual abuse against juveniles. In the roughly 17,500 cases involving children between ages 6 and 11, strangers are the perpetrators just 5% of the time—and just 3% of the time when the victim is under age 6. (Further, more than a third of such molesters are themselves juveniles, who may not be true “predators” so much as confused or unruly teens.) Overall, the odds that one of America’s 48 million children under age 12 will encounter an adult pedophile at the local park are startlingly remote. The Child Molestation Research & Prevention Institute states: “Right now, 90% of our efforts go toward protecting our children from strangers, when what we need to do is focus 90% of our efforts toward protecting children from the abusers who are not strangers.” That’s a diplomatic way of phrasing the uncomfortable but factually supported truth: that if your child is not molested in your home—by you, your significant other, or someone else you invited in—chances are your child will never be molested anywhere.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about evil strangers, only that the concern should be proportional and appropriate to the reality. People in positions of trust—family, teachers, clergy and the like—are the ones to be watched most closely. But the news likes a bogeyman on the loose. Aaaak! Run and hide! In front of your TV, of course, because next up on 24-hour Nooze, we pander to xenophobes!