Sensationalism in Newspapers: A Look at 'The Reporter' and 'Amandala' in Belize 2010--2014

Belize has been named among the list of 10 most violent countries in the world. The news media in Belize have been known to use crime stories as headlines in both electronic and print, but there has never been a formal study to determine how prevalent and sensational. This research seeks to address the question of whether two of Belize's most-read newspapers, the Reporter and the Amandala, have more sensational stories in their headlines, and how these stories compare to government and other human interest news. A sample of 120 front-page headlines/stories spanning a five-year period --- from January 2010 through December 2014 -- were content- analyzed to determine the ratio of sensational news to "other" news headlines.