Instances of female teachers sexually abusing male students are rare. But stories on the subject have lately taken up a lot of space at FoxNews.com.
.. The new focus started on June 30, when FoxNews.com published an article on “the apparently increasing frequency of female teachers having sex with their young male students.” Over the next six months the site posted some 98 articles on instances of sexual abuse allegedly committed by women, most of them teachers.
.. Tales of the unusual suit the tabloid aesthetic of much of the site’s content. What was noteworthy was the spike in coverage of the subject, which began a few weeks after Noah Kotch, a former producer at NBC’s “Today” show, became the site’s editor in chief. It also came in the aftermath of numerous sexual harassment scandals at Fox News.
Mr. Kotch, 43, said the articles were “of extremely high interest to readers.”
Sex crimes committed by women make up a small share of sexual offenses in the United States, according to the available evidence. But FoxNews.com readers could have been excused for holding the impression that the nation was in the middle of an epidemic of female teachers sexually abusing male pupils.
.. “We don’t cover sex crimes like statisticians. We cover what’s interesting to the reader.”
.. Nearly 30 percent of the articles posted under FoxNews.com’s “Sex Crimes” category between July and December were focused on female teachers, with many of them promoted near the top of the site’s home page.
.. Fewer than 9 percent of reported episodes of child sexual abuse are perpetrated by women
.. Much of the FoxNews.com coverage coincided with the rise of the #MeToo movement
.. Mr. Kotch, the website editor, was reportedly recruited personally by Rupert Murdoch, who has been the acting chief executive officer of Fox News since Mr. Ailes’s dismissal