122 Steve Mickler and Alec McHoul SOURCING THE WAVE: CRIME REPORTING, ABORIGINAL YOUTH AND THE WA PRESS, FEB 1991-JAN 1992 ABSTRAO This paper reports on some initiJ11 findings from thePrintMedia Project, an investigation based on a large database consisting of over 600 items of news reportage. In particular, it examines a supposed 'crime uuve' in 1991 andearly 1992andthepresumed involvement in it oj Aboriginal youth. While it finds some evidence for a mismatch between the news coverage of youth-crime and actua! crime data, the report also argues thata complex set oj relations between news sources, news participants and the press itselfis responsible Jorthis effect. It also finds eqUlllly complex issues surrounding (a) reportage on Abon'ginal youth and (b) participation by Aboriginal individuals and groups in the production of news. INTRODualON By December 1992 r such was the extraordinary preoccupation in the Perth public domain with a supposed crisis in levels of juvenile crime that the then Labor government reacted by introducing controversial new sentencing laws (White, 1992: 60). The Crime (Serious and Repeat Offenders) Sentencing Act 1992 meant, in effect .. more severe sentences for juvenile offenders than for adults committing the same offences (Wilkie, 1992: 188). However.. a number of Western Australian researchers argued that, during 1990, 1991 and into early 1992, the news media were effectively making crime waves appear to happen (Dodson, 1991; Mickler, 1992b). Moreover.. some researchers concluded that young Aboriginal people were being specifically targeted by the media, in a discriminatory way, as the main perpetrators of the supposed crime waves (Hartley, 1992; Mickler .. 1992b; Mudrooroo.. 1994; Sheinerr 1993; Trigger, 1995). While it is well known that Radio 6PR's high- rating moming talkback program, The Sattler File, played a central role by conducting a major public campaign for more severe penalties throughout the period in question (Beresford and Omaji, 1996; Laurie.. 1992; Mickler, 1992a) .. what has not so dearly been documented is the complicity, or otherwise, of the newspaper press - that is .... the media of record' (and its sources) in this campaign. In order to examine this further, a research team at Murdoch University (Bob Hodge, Mudrooroo Nyoongah and Alec McHoul) established the Print Media Project. This involved setting up a large database of newspaper reports on these topics taken from the state's two papers, The West Australian and The Sunday Times.. in the 12 months leading up to the new Act in February 1992. A research assistant was employed to gather all reports from these He dia International Aumalia incorporati ng Cultuft and Policy