News coverage of crime is an enduring emphasis within journalism research, in part because such coverage has the potential to meaningfully shape how audiences understand crime policy and their own safety. Drawing from the literature on news values, this article uses the prospect of desensitization as a lens through which to examine crime coverage. Focusing on a particularly salient form of U.S. crime—high-casualty mass shootings—we consider competing expectations about the possibility that, as shootings have grown more routine over time, news coverage exhibits signs of desensitization. Drawing on an original dataset of national news coverage focusing on all 263 high-casualty mass shootings that took place in the U.S. from 2013 to 2022, we find little evidence of desensitization. Rather, news coverage shows signs of continued—in some cases even growing—sensitivity to this violence. Implications for journalists and the public are discussed.
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