Report Raps ‘Shockumentary’ Shows

Mon., Jan. 19, 1998

New York Daily News

Fox’s reality-based shows containing footage of accidents, crime and death have been slammed as the most-violent programs on television, according to a new survey.

Indeed, while the survey conducted by the UCLA Center for Communication Policy found that overall violence was down on network television, it cited the Fox specials as a new source of intense violence, calling them “shockumentary” shows.

“While the majority of programing deals responsibly with violence issues, reality-based specials do not,” said Jeff Cole, the report’s author.

“The number of these violence-filled specials continued to grow during the 1996-97 season.”

According to the survey, reality-based specials such as Fox’s “World’s Most Dangerous Animals” and “World’s Scariest Police Shootouts” represent the only type of network programing in which the level of violent content has increased during the three years that UCLA has done the study. During the 1996-97 outing, there were 16 such specials.

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