A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF
THE TIDE AND THE PUNCH NEWSPAPERS NEWS PRESENTATION
1Amadi,
Richard Nlemanya and 2Chibunna, Egwele Godstime,
2Department
of Mass Communication, Rivers State
University of Science and
Technology, Nkpolu-Oroworukwo,
Port Harcourt, 2Port
Harcourt Based Public Affairs Analyst and
Media Consultant
ABSTRACT
The typology of media
ownership in Nigeria has orchestrated competition between government and
privately owned newspapers as they both strive to achieve maximum efficiency in
the discharge of the journalistic functions. Unarguably,
ownership is one of the major problems facing the media in Nigeria, be it
private or government. This study, however, investigated two prominent
newspapers – The Tide and The Punch with a view to examine how of ownership
pattern has influenced news coverage and presentation using the genre of news accorded prominence
by the newspapers as yardstick. The content analysis method of research
was adopted. Sample was derived from multi-stage sampling technique. A total of
28 daily publications of the two newspapers were
content analyzed following a
pool of sample from the newspapers published in the month of October, 2016.
Findings showed that media ownership influences news coverage and presentation
and that newspaper organisation hasten towards the coverage and reportage of
negative news stories. It is recommended among others that the
contents should be relevant, balanced and interest arousing without injecting
the interest of their owners and that the Nigerian press should also
promote the third world media philosophy of development journalism rather than
latching towards the reportage of negative news stories that paint’s the
Nigerian society in bad light.
Keywords: Orchestrated, media ownership, reportage,
contents, coverage, newspaper, presentation, comparative etc
INTRODUCTION
Communication is elemental to human existence; no human
association can cohere without communication. As one cannot but communicate,
for even the most sublime acts of restraint or withdrawals are loud messages
conveying readable meaning to the receiver (Brown &Udomisor, 2015).
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