Half of the terrorism related stories published in key national newspapers originate from the border region in Pakistan’s northwest, says a new study released by Inter Media, a local media development organisation.
“Almost 50% of terrorism stories come from FATA and Khyber Pakhtnkhwa” says the study “How Pakistani Media reports terrorism related conflict” conducted by Intermedia Pakistan, an Islamabad based media development organisation focusing on training, advocacy and research on media issues. “On TV the region gets 44% of the airtime when it comes to reporting on terrorism related conflict.”
“The study is based on in depth content analysis of terrorism related news reports published in a sample of newspapers and aired on select television channels”, says Sadaf Baig, the author of the report. “It unveils statistics that shed new light on the way local media covers terrorism in Pakistan.”
In terms of regional breakup of news coverage of terrorism related events, the study says: “FATA dominates the coverage of terrorism with 26% of terrorism related news emanating from the region, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa follows with 23%, Balochistan gets 24% coverage, Sindh 19%, Punjab 8%, Islamabad 6% while Gilgit Baltistan & AJK get 2% and 1% of space in newspapers.”
The study reveals that FATA and Frontier Regions (FRs) feature prominently in terrorism related stories. Armed fighting and skirmishes dominate the incidents of terrorism events reported from FATA. More than 48 per cent of the published items related to armed fighting of some sort. The impact of these incidents appeared grave as more than 81 per cent published stories reported loss of life.
The province of Sindh also figures features in the newspapers with respect to terrorism related incidents. No less than 64% of terrorism related news stories reported from Sindh focused on incidents of target killing. In more than 70% of the reported incidents of terror; ordinary citizens were the main victims of the crime.
More than 40% of the stories reporting terrorism in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa pertained to bombing incidents. Pakistani militants were reported involved in more than 92 per cent of the incidents. Almost 43 per cent of the terror attacks effected ordinary citizens and up to 63 per cent resulted in a loss of lives.
Target killing & armed fighting dominated reporting of terrorism from Balochistan, with around 33% of the published stories focusing on either bombing or target killing incidents. Around 74 per cent of the published stories reported loss of lives. The most frequently reported incident of terror from Punjab was kidnapping with 29 per cent of the news stories reporting incidents of kidnapping and abduction. As many as 46 per cent of the news stories from Punjab mentioned a loss of life.
Though Islamabad and ICT zones did not appear frequently in the news, 57per cent of the published stories reported incidents of target killing, 64 per cent of the reported victims were ordinary citizens and 75 per cent of the stories reported a loss of lives.
In terms of priority, terrorism related incidents seem to be slipping down from front pages of newspapers and headlines in the television news bulletins. The data shows that barely 14 per cent of the stories were aired as the top story in the 9 o’ clock news bulletins. Terrorism related stories from Sindh seem to be more of a priority for news channels than newspapers; 35% of the related stories aired among the first 10 news items of prime time bulletin originated in Sindh; as opposed to 10% Sindh related stories that were published on the front page in newspapers.
The coverage of conflict and terrorism also appears lacking in research and investigation. Of all the stories published, almost 98 per cent were of a reactive nature. On television, none of the stories aired was proactive. However, most stories were judged as average or good in quality.
Blog post Written by Shahid Abbasi and You can visit the original article at http://www.thenewstribe.com/