Pakistani Media, Stop Glamorizing and Highlighting Crime

There is substantial evidence which confirms that crime when highlighted in the media leads to more crime, as it triggers the angry or desperate people, and some of them actually make attempts of actually committing the crime ...

For example, in Pakistan, since the first news about a child committing suicide due to bad grades and pressure of studies was highlighted in the media and was given exclusive coverage, many similar cases of suicide has followed among children of similar age since then... simply because the coverage of first instance allowed many other teenagers to imagine the same. 

This phenomenon is also highlighted by Malcolm Gladwell in his bestseller book the Tipping Point, where Gladwell shared research conducted by a social scientist somewhere in USA which inferred that correlation exists in the suicide rates and the degree of coverage of the incidents in the media.

This survey shows the opinion of public about the role of media in Pakistan

Same would be true for other sort of crimes as well. This implies that the coverage of crime by Pakistani media is not helping Pakistan make a better society, rather it may only contribute in making the public more violent, corrupt and law breaking. 

From the point of view of the person who has the propensity to commit a crime, if he see a lots of people doing something similar, and no one is getting punished, then it is not too hard to imagine the kind of motivation he would receive... will such a trend in a wild pursuit to increase viewer-ship  would make the society a relatively peaceful society?

It is impossible that in the entire country of 180 million not even a single person is proven guilty and convicted or sentenced for his crimes, in a day or a week. If only media can highlight that, by making it a regular segment of prime time news, it would hopefully discourage those who are on the verge of committing a crime, subsequently making the society a peaceful place.

But why would media bother, as a peaceful society might have less news to break, lesser opportunity to grab attention of public, hence lesser advertising revenue...

Proponents of role of free media might argue that highlighting a particular alerts the law enforcement institutions, or warns the public etc, however research and common sense suggests otherwise; i.e. by highlighting the convictions instead, media can help reduce crime...

A cause has been created to address this issue, please support the cause and invite others as well. Click on the following page to be a part of this cause http://www.causes.com/.../1697592


Author is a  academic researcher, author, social entrepreneur and tweets @javaidomar