Misleading Data In The Media

We Need To Be Careful With Data In The Media

Domestic violence is a vitally important social issue — and it is just as important that we are accurate and concise with the statistical information we use to discuss it. Many violence-against-women groups work tirelessly to raise awareness, and these campaigns matter. They bring an important issue into the open, where it should be discussed. Conversations about violence should not be taboo.

The Red Heart Campaign (TRHC) is one of those groups. It is run by Sherele Moody, a prominent journalist with a deep passion for the topic. She runs both The Red Heart Campaign and the Australian Femicide Map — a memorial to many of the men, women and children lost to manslaughter in Australia. The map is a work of art. Having built a similar resource ourselves, we know exactly how much effort goes into creating and maintaining it.

The Red Heart Campaign is, rightly, a powerful tool for raising awareness about violence against women. TRHC also keeps an annual count of female victims lost to preventable deaths each year, regardless of the perpetrator's gender or their relationship to the victim.

What The TRHC Count Includes

TRHC's annual count is intended to capture how many women die in Australia from causes such as:

• Domestic violence
• Violence by strangers
• Terrorist attacks
• Accidental killings by partners
• Murders and manslaughters of Australians overseas by foreigners

This list sometimes changes, and other forms of death are added to it over time.

Ensuring Accuracy

Sometimes these counts find their way into domestic violence articles and onto domestic violence support service webpages, to show how many women are dying each year from preventable causes. While the intent is important, it can unintentionally conflate very different issues. Unless someone has researched each individual death, the result can be a chain of conflations.

Many readers unintentionally perceive the headline number as the count of domestic violence deaths in that period — particularly when it appears on DV support pages or inside DV articles. Those same people then repeat the number in other forums, and this is where the problem starts: an incorrect figure quietly enters the public record.

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A domestic violence support group shares the Red Heart Campaign's death count, and a member of the public unknowingly cites the same figure as a domestic violence statistic — when, at the time of writing, only 10 women had been murdered in confirmed DV incidents.

While this is certainly unintentional, it is critically important not to conflate the issues.

The Cases Behind The Headline Number

Below we list every female death from The Red Heart Campaign's count and explain each one individually. This list is correct as of the "23 women murdered" figure displayed at the time of writing — 2 May 2019.

The Red Heart Campaign also flags which events it believes are domestic-violence related:

• Non-Australian or non-DV related events are highlighted red.
• DV-related events are highlighted green.

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1. Femicide — The Basin, Victoria

Male charged. News.com.au coverage

At the time of writing, it is unknown whether this murder was domestic-violence related. TRHC have not flagged this as a DV incident.

2. Femicide — Australian woman, London (UK)

Male charged. DV. Brisbane Times coverage

This death is a domestic violence incident, but it occurred in the United Kingdom and the perpetrator was not Australian. It should not appear on an Australian domestic violence count — it is not reflective of an Australian issue, nor a death that occurred in Australia, by an Australian.

3. Femicide — Melbourne, Victoria

Male charged. DV. News.com.au coverage

This is a confirmed domestic violence related event in Australia.

4. Femicide — Sri Lanka

Male suspects. ABC News coverage

This has no connection to domestic violence at all. This was a death by terrorism in Sri Lanka.

5. Femicide — Minto, NSW

Male charged. DV. 9News coverage

This is a domestic-violence related event, though there is a possibility it may have been in self-defence. We include it as a DV-related event because, regardless of self-defence, it is still a DV event.

6. Femicide — Kooringal, NSW

Suspects unknown. Daily Advertiser coverage

Perpetrator unknown. Victim died in an intentionally lit fire. Possible suicide.

7. Femicide — Sydenham, NSW

Suspects unknown. The Age coverage

Non-DV related event. No perpetrator is known.

8. Child Killed — Townsville, Queensland

Woman charged. DV. Townsville Bulletin coverage

DV event. Two children were killed by their mother. Because this appears in a "violence against women" count, readers may presume the perpetrator was male.

9. Femicide — Punjab, India

One male suspect, two female suspects. DV. SBS coverage

This is technically DV — however, the person responsible for killing this woman was another woman. It also occurred in a foreign country and is not reflective of DV within Australia. There was also a heavy cultural influence in the killing. It is not reflective of an Australian issue, nor of men's violence against women, as it is often portrayed when bundled into the total.

10. Femicide — Moora, Western Australia

Male charged. Possible DV. Community News coverage

There is no information to suggest this was domestic-violence related. TRHC themselves flagged it only as "Poss DV".

11. Femicide — Glendale, SA

Male suspect. DV. Daily Telegraph coverage

This is a confirmed DV incident.

12. Femicide — Parramatta, NSW

Male charged. Possible DV. News.com.au coverage

This was not a DV incident. The victim was not in any kind of domestic or family relationship with the perpetrator — he was a not well-known acquaintance. This does not fit the legal definition of DV.

13. Femicide — Ashbury, NSW

Female suspect. News.com.au coverage

A 92-year-old woman murdered by her female cleaner. This was not a DV incident, but will be folded into a male-violence-against-women total.

14. Femicide — Kingsford, NSW

Male suspect. DV. ABC News coverage

We consider this one borderline. There is no evidence yet that this is DV-related. The victim's ex-partner was killed in a car accident the day after the victim's murder, and it is believed the accident was possibly a suicide. It may be circumstantial — at this point in time it is unknown.

15. Femicide — Burwood East, Victoria

Male charged. DV. Herald Sun coverage

Again, nothing here suggests this is DV-related. Since the 10-year campaign to end violence against women, DV events against women are typically reported with the words "domestic violence" in the article. There is no such mention in this coverage.

16. Femicide — Woonona, NSW

Male charged. DV. Daily Telegraph coverage

This is a DV incident.

17. Femicide — Ballarat, Victoria

Male charged (woman on accessory offence). Daily Mail coverage

This is not a DV incident.

18. Femicide — Karawatha, Queensland

4 male and 1 female suspects. ABC News coverage

This is not a DV incident and includes a female suspect. It will likely be sold as male violence against women.

23. Femicide — Pretty Pine, NSW

Male charged. Mirage News coverage

This is not a DV incident. The couple were in a relationship — by all accounts a happy, loving one. There was an accidental discharge of a firearm while they were hunting together, resulting in the woman's death. There was no violence between them.

24. Femicide — Bundoora, Victoria

Male charged. 10 Daily coverage

This is not a DV incident. The victim was not known to the perpetrator.

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Summary Of The 23 Cases

• 7 confirmed DV incidents
• 6 confirmed female victims
• 5 confirmed female victims of domestic violence homicide with male suspects/charged
• 1 woman murdered by another woman
• 5 women were suspects in the murders
• 1 woman murdered 2 children

Accuracy And Non-Conflation Matter

This conflation of data is not the fault of The Red Heart Campaign — but journalists who use the information need to be careful about what the data actually represents. As we have shown, the same number can easily be misconstrued as something else. The result is incorrect data being cited in the media, making a very real and important problem look much larger than it actually is. That, in turn, causes unnecessary fear.

According to the Red Heart Campaign's own count, 7 of these incidents were confirmed as domestic-violence related. The other concern with the headline figure is that it can be portrayed as deaths of women by men — these counts are frequently cited in "men's violence against women" pieces. As we can see, some of these murders were committed by women, and most were not DV-related, nor occurred in Australia by Australians.

It is still a tragic number — but less than one-third are DV-related, while being cited as such. That is deeply inaccurate.

Even though TRHC has listed 6 women and 4 children (2 of whom were murdered by a mother) as dying as a result of DV, DVAA has independently identified 10 women who died due to DV in Australia in the same period.

Accuracy is key.

The information on the RHC page is also treated very differently depending on who the victim is. The Red Heart Campaign does capture male victim death counts, but that number rarely makes it to the media. When male deaths are discussed online, the focus is almost always the gender of the perpetrator. When the discussion is female victims, the focus is almost always the gender of the victim. The same asymmetry applies to child homicides.

Why the difference in reporting?

— DVAA Team