News of domestic violence: Journalistic imperatives in television news reporting of domestic violence

Abstract

In 2018, a nationwide study of Pakistan (with a population of 207.7 million) found that at least 28 percent of women have experienced physical, sexual and/or emotional violence in domestic settings. With a posited high number of unreported incidents, domestic violence in Pakistan is considered prevalent in all social spheres. News coverage of domestic violence plays a central role in communicating the nature and extent of this major social problem and influencing understanding of its causes and consequences. Yet, in Pakistan, changing attitudes toward domestic violence is compounded by the presentation of crime news stories throug entertainment orientated rather than ‘solution-driven’ journalism (Khan et al., 2016). This research set out to form a better understanding of Pakistani television news journalists’ knowledge and understanding of domestic violence to gain insight into the way news channel currently address this social problem. The paper reports on interviews conducted with Pakistani news journalists (n = 11). All journalists identified physical abuse as a form of domestic violence while only half included emotional abuse in its scope. The issue of sexual abuse within a marriage was considered contentious and complicated topic especially in terms of whether it should be given news coverage. While domestic violence was conceptualized as a problem resulting from and maintained by Pakistan’s patriarchal social structures, in news reporting it was largely represented as incident based and minimal resources are set aside for its coverage.