Evaluation of Political News Reportage in Nigeria’s Vanguard and The Guardian Newspapers

Abstract

This study was conducted to assess how political issues were treated in Nigeria’s newspapers, by assessing: the ratio of political news to the other subject matters, the readers’ interest given to political stories and the level of prominence attached to these stories by the way of placement and importance. Content analysis was used to gather data, and the study sample was derived through stratified sampling method. A total of 36 daily publications of the two newspapers were content analyzed from a pool of sample drawn through stratified random sampling technique from issues of the newspapers published within the three months period—April to June, 2013. The data from these newspapers were analyzed using independent t-test statistical technique. Findings showed that political issues were not given adequate attention in the two newspapers, and were mostly tailored towards government’s interests. The recommendations among others were that the Nigerian newspapers, in general, should render vivid and unbiased reportage of political issues, as well as scale-up political content in publications as a way of consolidating political consciousness in Nigeria.