What Proportion of Newspaper Stories about Child Molestation Involves Homosexuality?

Abstract

Do homosexuals disproportionately molest children? A survey of 8 of the nation's newspaper news stories of child molestation during the first 9 months of 1995 showed that about 40% of child molestation stories in the major cities involve homosexuality. An Internet survey of FirstSearch for 1989 through 1995 indicated 46%, and of Newsbank for 1990 through 1995 60% of molestations were homosexual. About half of teachers, day care workers and other professionals caught molesting children assaulted them homosexually. It is argued that large unbiased sets of newspaper news stories appear to approximate the figures for incidence of child molestation by those occupying a newsworthy status but overreport homosexual molestation in general.