‘Miss Representation of Crime’: Sensitivity, Analysis, Role of Media, Educators, Parents Critical – Joe Issa

With concern over reporting which makes Jamaica look worse than it really is, civic leader Joe Issa, in an interview, urges greater sensitivity and analysis for the sake of Jamaicans and visitors.

Joseph Issa

“We have to avoid sensationalism in reporting and put sensitivity before news worthiness; while putting more analysis into the story such as the causes of crime, so that the viewer or listener is left with no doubt about the circumstances surrounding crime in Jamaican communities.

“Only recently, a story was related to me of a man who approached another, telling him that gunshots had been fired from at a nearby street, and how he made him run away, as he had been sitting there all afternoon and had not heard any gunshots.

“You have a lot of that in communities – people who hear somebody say something and go away and repeat it somewhere else as if they were there. It’s like: ‘see mi there, I know things!’

“These are the people who misrepresent the numbers every time they tell someone else and that person tells another,” said Issa, who is a member of the St. Ann Chamber of Commerce Past Presidents Advisory Committee.

In exaggerating to make a point, Issa suggest that “if the entire population could be told at different times and by different people and means – TV, radio and social media – the same crime could be multiplying 2.7 million times. So nobody wants to leave their home and no visitors, including the Diaspora want to come home.” 

And if what is true in Australia – where Issa was presented with the 1994 Young Hotellier of the World award – is also true for Jamaica, “the concern is that the level and type of crime reported in the media presents a distorted view of the real level of crime in the community.”