APPRAISING THE CRIME NEWS: A CONTENT ANALYSIS STUDY OF DAILY THE NATION NEWSPAPER OF PAKISTAN

The aim of the current study is to examine the coverage of crimes in daily The Nation – an English language newspaper of Pakistan. To meet the objectives, the quantitative content analysis technique based on the last year of 2020 was carried out. First, the Karachi edition of the newspaper was selected, and then the crimes related news were generated through an archive service for the newspaper. Afterwards, the news were categorized as to know what things concerning crimes the newspaper has brought in the news. A total of 75 news related to crimes showed; most of the crimes (46) were committed in the urban areas of the province of Sindh. 29 out of 75 news mentioned inside the murder crime as committed more as compared to other crimes, 33 news mentioned the age bracket of people who committed crimes in which the age bracket of 21 to 30 years was commonly mentioned. 20 news mentioned the identities of the people who committed the crimes. The common cause behind the crimes was related to family matters, and mostly mentioned cause was honour killing. Findings showed that the most of crimes were committed domestically. The questions of how the press treats the news related to crimes, how the press can play its greater part to decline the rate of crimes, and what impacts the crime news leave to the masses should be answered through research studies