Newspapers Coverage of Internally Displaced Persons in Nigeria: May – July 2018
The objective of the study is to examine the extent to which newspapers reported the issue of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nigeria. The agenda-setting theory and the social responsibility theory formed the theoretical foundation to this study. The study adopted content analysis and the survey method, through interview to scrutinize six (6) Nigerian national newspapers- Daily Sun, Daily Times, Leadership, The Nation, Punch and Vanguard for a period of 3 months: May 1, 2018 to July 31, 2018. Coding sheet was used to code 552 editions of the newspapers within the 3-months period where 182 contents on IDPs were found and analyzed. Also, interview guide was employed to garner the view of six (6) communications and media experts. Findings presented through descriptive and inferential statistics revealed that the selected national newspapers mainly accorded low prominence to issue of IDPs through page placement stories. The coverage of major issues the selected newspapers reported about the IDPs was about the vulnerability of the IDPs. It was shown that coverage of selected newspapers as shown to have been varied geographically where North-East garnered the highest coverage, while the South-West had no coverage on IDPs situation. Results showed that the most dominant tone used by the selected newspapers was the positive. Also, findings revealed that Nigerian newspapers need understand more about the issue of IDPs, editors of newspapers need assign their reporters to intensively cover the IDPs situation and report it frequently on their publications; security agencies, NEMA, SEMA, INGOs, and NGOs need to corporate and collaborate with newspapers organizations for them to be further strengthened as a communication tool in proffering solution to the issue of internal displacements in Nigeria The study recommended, among other things, that the Nigerian press should be more intentional in increasing coverage on IDPs and give prominence to the coverage of IDPs by way of positioning of reports on the front page.
