It has been over two weeks since social media star Qandeel Baloch was killed by her brother and cousin as she slept in her parents’ home in Multan, on July 15, 2016.

In the days after her death there has been much debate about the role of the media in this murder, with many laying the blame of her death squarely on the shoulders of the media, which tirelessly covered her titillating public stunts during her short public life.

Qandeel shot to fame in 2014, when she released a video proposing suggestively to politician and cricket legend Imran Khan.

That video went viral and a social media star was born. Emboldened by the response from a conservative nation, Qandeel moved onto more provocative promises such as ‘strip dancing’ for the Pakistani cricket team if they won against India.

The girl from a lower middle-class family from Dera Ghazi Khan soon developed a big following with an audience, that may not have approved of her, but which waited eagerly for the next titillating offering from her.

She displayed rare media savvy in the way she released videos that were destined to go viral from the moment they were uploaded on social media. In an environment where the lines between Pakistan’s mainstream and sensationalist media seem to have been irretrievably blurred, Qandeel was soon invited to popular talk shows and even shows that discussed current affairs on a regular basis.

It is still unclear whether Qandeel’s death qualifies as honour killing. Her murder could well have been the result of a squabble with her drug-addicted brother Waseem Azeem — who she was supporting — over money.

However if we were to take her brother’s confession to the police at face value, it raises several questions about the narrative that the mainstream media had shaped for Qandeel Baloch.

Widely portrayed during her short public life as a promiscuous, salacious woman, Qandeel’s provocative proposal to Imran Khan, her promises to ‘strip dance’ and her rendezvous with government cleric Mufti Abdul Qavi, were covered tirelessly by the mainstream media, infuriating many, including allegedly her own brother.

She got used to a jeering crowd that attacked her callously on social media, even releasing a video asking her haters to unfollow her.

To be fair, Qandeel basked in the attention the mainstream lavished on her. It was a symbiotic relationship where she provided the latest controversy and the media fed and fuelled it, in order to strengthen the other symbiotic relationship it shared with its consumers, that is, you and me.

Unfortunately, the jibes did not stop, even when things took what should have registered as a serious turn. In the days before her death, the media dug out Qandeel’s ex-husband to further milk her notoriety and to fill up air time with TRP-worthy fodder.

Despite going on air and talking about receiving death threats after the Mufti Abdul Qavi episode and talking about being physically abused during a short-lived marriage, the media preferred to turn a blind eye and busy itself with propagating the narrative it had fashioned for her, by asking her husband pointed questions designed to malign her and to pat itself on the back for yanking out a skeleton from her closet.

With Qandeel dead, it is time to ask whether the media can really take the moral high ground by saying that they are merely supplying what we are demanding? We may not approve of Qandeel’s ‘rendezvous’ with Mufti Abdul Qavi, but we were eagerly lapping it up when the ‘news’ broke on TV and the controversy ran ad-nauseam across our screens.

The Qandeel-Mufti rendezvous was god-sent for the media, as it strengthened the popular narrative it had created about her, adding several hundred thousand eyeballs and more points to the TV channel’s TRPs.

Will Qandeel’s death change anything? In the past the media has been blamed for the death of other celebrities, such as Princess Diana. But little has been done to curb the sensationalism it broadcasts so unthinkingly and carelessly.

If anything, since Princess Diana’s death and despite much introspection by the media back then, the tabloid business around the world has only grown.

A scroll down the average social media newsfeed and it becomes hard to tell the difference between the mainstream and tabloid media. Also the media’s largely self-serving stance on public figures becomes obvious.

Will channel heads and editors accept that they encouraged unchecked coverage of Qandeel while she lived?

Will they accept that they milked the public’s fascination with her against their better judgment? With Qandeel gone, not only is it time to talk about outdated feudal customs that she may have fallen victim to, it is also time to question the media’s role in creating a frenzy and appetite around her, her death and the events leading up to it.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, July 7th, 2016

Explore the series:

• Part 1: The phenomena of Qandeel Baloch: Misbehaving women
• Part 2: The phenomena of Qandeel Baloch: Dishonour in death
• Part 3: The phenomena of Qandeel Baloch: The brave new world of Pakistan’s social media
• Part 4: The phenomena of Qandeel Baloch: Changing women ─ Moving into public space
• Part 5: The phenomena of Qandeel Baloch: Did the media kill Qandeel Baloch?