This paper discusses the results of several studies concerning the depiction of violence in the news. Three studies involve 25 interviews of news professionals at public service and private television channels in Sweden. Interview questions focus on how the news professionals define a violent news item, their motives for showing violence, and on their conceptualizations of the audience. Also included are the results of three studies involving in- depth interviews with small samples of viewers and telephone interviews with a representative sample of the Swedish population concerning their understanding of and reactions to the depiction of violence in television news. Results of these interviews show that news professionals usually do not include accounts of the consequences of violent acts into their definitions of violent news. The audience, however, does; injured and mutilated human beings are considered violent news. Audience reactions to violent news differed depending on the gender of the audience member. Although news professionals talk about "awakening the audience" by showing violent news, only half of the viewers interviewed reported that were shocked by showing close-up pictures of victims of violence. The other half either did not react or reacted only occasionally. The author concludes that the more the news media approaches fiction, a tendency pointed out by other researchers, the more society risks that viewers will apply reaction schemas from fiction to the news stories. Many of those interviewed told that they reacted much less to violence in fiction than in television news. 1 table, 5 notes, 25 references