PUTAJ – Humanities and Social Sciences Vol. 22, No. 2, 2015 (December) 83 Portrayal of Women in the Visual News of Pakistan: A Case Study of Model Girl Ayyan Ali Yasar Arafat * & Nauman Sial † Abstract Portrayal of women has been considered as a symbol of attraction in the media. Women are being shown in the advertisements for the promotion and the selling of the products. This research was carried out to analyze the image and portrayal of women that is being presented in the broadcast news of Pakistan. One of the top model girls of Pakistan i.e. Ayyan Ali was arrested in money laundering case at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport, Islamabad Pakistan, on March 14, 2015. She remained in Adyala Jail of Rawalpindi city for almost four months before her bail. During this period, she appeared thirteen times in the court. On her each appearance, the news media gave her excessive coverage. The news reports of three private television news channels were selected through convenient sampling. Content analysis has been used as a research design to measure that how much coverage was given to the actual happening in the court and how much coverage was given to the physical appearance of the model girl Ayyan Ali. The results show that the news channels were concerned more with the physical appearance of the model girl rather than the actual happening in the court. Keywords: News, Television, Stereotyping, Women, Stereotypical Images, Model Ayyan Ali Introduction On 13 th of March 2015, Pakistani super model girl Ayyan Ali was arrested at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport, Islamabad Pakistan, when she was travelling from Pakistan to UAE. The airport authorities claimed that she was arrested because she was smuggling US$500,000 out of the country. After her arrest, she was sent to jail. She remained in the jail for more than four months. On 13 th of July, Lahore High Court approved her bail and she was finally released from the jail. During these four months, she appeared in the court about thirteen times (DAWN.com, 2015). On each of her appearance in the court, she received great coverage by Pakistani electronic news media. The paper aims to know whether the coverage of Ayyan Ali was gender stereotypical coverage or did it focus on the actual news. The role of television has increased in our lives and especially in the lives of youngsters. Television provides the image of the world in which they are entering, so their perception * Department of Media and Communication Studies, International Islamic University Islamabad † Department of Media and Communication Studies, International Islamic University Islamabad