1 Coverage of crime and violence in Nigerian media: matters arising

Nigerias socio-political and economic landscape has been blighted by the endemic twin evil of crime and violence. Social responsibility media, framing, and attribution theories provide the theoretical anchor for this paper. Nigerian consumers of media products, like their counterparts in other cultures, are insatiably interested in, and are at times shocked and fascinated by, crime and violence, as covered in the media. The Nigerian mass media, acting both as mirrors of society and business enterprises, provide a daily diet of these crimes, howbeit deficiently. This deficiency is traceable to their episodic rather than thematic approach, their individual, instead of societal blame, and cause, rather than solution. Nigerian media, in many instances, fail to turn their searchlight on the undercurrents of crime and violence: the Nigerian system of justice and the issues and grievances that give rise to crime and violence in the society. The paper, as matters arising, critically examines the often ignored, and at best-perfunctorily handled, aspects of coverage of crime and violence in Nigerian media. Nigeria’s socio-political and economic landscape has been blighted by the endemic twin evi