NEWSPAPER COVERAGE PATTERN OF FOREIGN NEWS A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THIS DAY, PUNCH AND THE GUARDIAN
ABSTRACT
This research work is a comparative study of patterns of international news coverage among three Nigerian national dailies: This Day, Punch and The Guardian newspapers between January 2013 and January 2014. The study adopted content analysis method, using Stemple’s 1952 continuous and constructed week pattern to draw a sample of 42 additions of the selected newspapers from a population of 1,095 issues. Code sheet was used as instrument of data collection, whereas, a reliability coefficient of categories were based on prior literature contents categories. The validity of the instrument was ascertained by the supervisor and two other professionals in Department of Curriculum & Measurement, Faculty of Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The findings showed that: (i) Each of the chosen newspapers gave coverage to foreign news, meanwhile, Punch gave greatest attention, it was followed by The Guardian and This Day newspaper which gave the least coverage. (ii) Majority of the newspapers’ reportage on foreign news was in the straight news genre. (iii) When compared to local news reportage, there was inadequate coverage of foreign news among the selected papers. The study concludes that, significantly, the newspapers did not give adequate coverage to foreign news either selectively or collectively. This, drawn the inference that Nigeria newspaper within the study period, failed in performing their role of informing, & educating the people on matters pertaining to foreign news. The researcher recommends that newspapers in Nigeria should show readers the importance of foreign news since the world is increasing compressing into a global system of connectedness by better foreign news coverage.