Do the media accurately reflect issues of crime?

No. 
Th media focuses on statistics of *reported crime*.
The media fixates on the homicide rate as a single metric of overall
safety and security, so that if someone is beaten to a pulp in a
swarming but somehow survives, then the crime is counted as "merely"
an aggravated assault.
Many victims of serious, life-threatening assaults, who would have likely died
of the trauma in decades past, are surviving today due to
911/paramedic/trauma centers.
The media focuses on "newsworthy" crimes, such as the Scott Peterson circus,
while tacitly accepting a certain type or scale of crime as just life
in the big city.
The media focuses on crimes with a political dimension while
under-reporting crimes by organized criminal terrorists.

I don't believe so.  I think the media puts a bright magnifying
spotlight on an issue here, and an issue there, greatly intensifying
our awareness of certain crimes.  A more accurate reflection would be
a slice cut all the way through the pie.  A cross section.

Bronx District Attorney Robert T. Johnson uses New York State
terrorism laws to counter marrauding street gang.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52504-2005Jan31.html