Fear sells, cruelty doesn’t: Is journalism failing animals?

Every other week, we see a new headline screaming "Dog menace in [insert city name here]". Not once do we pause to ask why that "menace" exists. Hungry, abused, kicked, hit with stones and bricks, or chased for years -- these animals do not just wake up one day and decide to terrify humans. They react to how we've treated them.

But instead of reporting the cruelty that creates aggression, we magnify fear. When a dog bites, it becomes breaking news. When a human beats, burns, or poisons one -- silence. No prime-time outrage, no crawling ticker, no "exclusive footage".

And then, there's the glorification of breeders. Featuring the "animal lover" -- with 50 foreign-breed cats and multiple dogs in debilitating conditions -- pumping out litters for cash, with a glossy photo spread. "Successful entrepreneur turns passion into business," the caption says, as if selling lives were a noble career.

These are not hobbyists, they're traffickers. And by celebrating them, we become their marketers.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Ethical reporting could change everything. Imagine if every story that called a dog "aggressive" also explained the stress, starvation, or past beatings that made it so. Imagine if instead of glorifying breeders, we interviewed the exhausted volunteers who pull maggot-ridden puppies from drains, feed strays daily, and fund sterilisation from their own pockets. Those who pick up starved and abused dogs who were brought in for breeding and then thrown out once the "job was done".

Real journalism doesn't stop at "people are scared". It asks why they're scared, who benefits from that fear, and who suffers because of it. And right now, it is the animals that suffer -- because we refuse to tell their side.

Photo: Joyeeta Trisha/Star

When ordinary citizens are already trying to change the culture -- choosing adoption over buying, learning about sterilisation, vaccinating strays -- the media should be an ally, not an obstacle. Instead, we often amplify ignorance, validate superstition, and protect comfort over conscience.

Responsible coverage means using the right words: "community dogs", not "stray menace". It means knowing the law -- the Animal Welfare Act 2019 prohibits abuse, neglect, and unauthorised breeding. It means calling out municipal bodies when they violate the High Court's order against dog culling.

It means remembering that journalism is not just about who speaks loudest, but who has no voice at all.

The truth is, the media mirror has cracks and this beat reflects our deepest hypocrisy. We write about compassion when it comes to people, but treat animal lives as entertainment or inconvenience.

We champion "justice" for victims, yet when a pregnant dog is beaten to death, it is barely even reported.

It's easy to forget that empathy isn't species-specific. Every animal story we mishandle chips away at our own humanity. The journalist's job is to expose injustice, not excuse it.

When we publish fear instead of facts, whom do we serve? When we make cruelty invisible, whom are we protecting?

It's 2025. Ignorance is no longer innocence. Every breeder we glorify, every cruelty we ignore, every lazy headline we print -- it all adds up.

The day the press learns to see through eyes that don't look like our own -- four-legged, voiceless, unprofitable -- that'll be the day we finally become humane, not just human.