Abstract
Insecurity of lives and property in Nigeria has continued unabated through crime perpetration of all kinds. All forms of violent crimes, including property crimes are reported in the newspapers virtually on daily basis. Concerned by what the feelings of the audience could be on the resonating outcome of Nigerian newspapers’ crime reportage, the attendant palpable fear, anxiety, a sense of insecurity and whether or not the newspapers’ crime stories gratified their safety information need, this study adopted a non-probability sampling technique and through an in-depth interviews probed into the perspectives of purposively selected Lagos State residents on Nigerian newspapers’ coverage of crime and the gratification of their safety information need. Adopting purposive sampling technique, a total of twelve literate respondents, across the three Senatorial Districts (Lagos Central, Lagos East and Lagos West) who had lived and worked in Lagos State for at least five years preceding the study were interviewed. Findings revealed a sense of insecurity and palpable fear among the respondents; Lagos State is prone to crime; murder, robbery, kidnapping, while payment of ransom to secure the release of kidnapped victims were rife. The study revealed that the newspapers feasted on crime stories, but embraced episodic crime reportage. The newspaper crime stories were found educative and gratified the safety information need of the reader even as the police, judiciary and the political class were found culpable in crime festering in Nigeria. The paper recommends that newspapers should engage more in investigative reporting of crime by reporting it like an epidemic while the country’s security personnel require constant intelligence report in addition to being proactive, and professional. The Judiciary should ensure the dispensation of justice in all crime cases.
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