This article delves into the history, stylistic features, and political coverage of the Nigerian daily newspaper, Vanguard. Vanguard is a prominent Nigerian daily newspaper published by Vanguard Media, with its headquarters located in Lagos, Nigeria.
History and Background
Vanguard newspaper plays a pivotal role in facilitating communication within society. This role is crucial for the sustainability of society, as it promotes economic, cultural, social, and political growth through information dissemination, education, entertainment, and mobilization.
In Nigeria, the first newspaper, Iwe Irohin, was published in Abeokuta in 1859 by Reverend Henry Townsend, an English Missionary of the Anglican Mission. Since then, the country has experienced phenomenal growth in the newspaper sector, so much so that it has become a tool in stating and defending ideology by individuals and political entities.
Despite the transcendental advancement of electronic media, the newspaper is a popular channel of mass communication, and an integral part of Nigeria’s political consciousness.
In June 1990, the paper's publication was briefly suspended by Col.
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Stylistic Features of Vanguard Headlines
A study investigated the stylistic features of Nigerian Vanguard headlines. The study analyzed the graphological, grammatical, lexical, and other notable language features to establish elements constituting the style of Vanguard Newspaper headlines.
To achieve the objective of the study, the stratified sampling method was used to collect 120 headlines published between January and December 2014. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used for data analysis. The qualitative method enabled the author to account for the motivations for the use noted language features, while the quantitative method helped to account for the preponderance of certain language features to the exclusion of others.
To identify and explain style features in the selected newspaper headlines, Halliday's functional stylistic theory was applied. The findings showed that certain linguistic features were highlighted for the functions they were made to perform in the headlines.
The Press as the "Fourth Estate"
The press plays the key role of midwife in the facilitation of communication in the society. Little wonder the press has been tagged the “fourth estate” in recognition of its stately duty of being a link between government and the governed and for its watchdog function on the society.
Similarly, the newspaper (the colossal agent of the press) is the oldest medium of mass communication with its existence traceable to the 17th century. At the beginning, the newspaper was society’s primary instrument of mass communication and till today the log book of human affairs than any other means of communication.
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Given these, therefore, this study attempts to evaluate how Nigeria’s Vanguard and The Guardian cover and report political issues.
Political News Coverage
News media are one of the principal channels for disseminating information about the political institutions and processes in modern societies. News, as a vital commodity of the communication industry, stimulates an important increase in productivity in public administration, industry, agriculture, and social services. News helps in effective planning of all facets of our economic, political, and social life.
Journalists and politicians know that they cannot succeed without each other in their respective careers. Therefore, despite the conflicting relationship that may exist between them, they manage to maintain a relationship that would help them to use each other in achieving their professional goals.
Legislation are heavy consumers of information supplied by the mass media and other sources such as interest groups, constituents, technical experts and colleagues. Law makers and politicians are important sources of information and opinion that the mass media transmit to society. Reporters are gate keepers to media access for public officials who are always seeking to reach broad audiences.
The news media devote a substantial part of their time and resources to covering politics. The vicissitudes of parties, personnel changes, their rise and fall, the personality conflicts and bickering combined with the all pervasive government decisions and activities form the political process and institutions that the media must report on.
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It is therefore an established fact that among communication scholars in any media system whether democratic or socialist, politics and government constitute a major topic of coverage, despite the fact that ideological orientation and social structures may affect the nature of reportage in terms of central characters, issues and the manner of reporting by each medium.
While government requires complete allegiance of the media organs to their policies of information dissemination, the private media owners and their newspapers tend to give undue priority to commercial matters for profit motives. Therefore, it sounds illogical to think and most unrealistic to hope that the general imbalance in the level of political reporting by various print media houses in Nigeria will not affect the level of information distribution within the country.
The Nigerian media industry has only been so pre-occupied in the acquisition of sophisticated modern communication technology hardware with a complete disregard to the operational communication, which received only a token attention. It should be noted that the development of the human variables in the operational aspects of the media rather than the impressive arrays of communication technologies would lead to the proper operation of the media for balanced news reportage.
In Nigeria, while this system may envisage vagueness, the press systems of this nation are not pure as her press systems combine elements from different systems in its operation.
Objectives of Political News Reportage Analysis
- To examine how the print media in Nigeria report political issues.
- To examine the rate at which political news is given prominence in the process of news coverage.
- To examine the relevance of adequate political news report by newspapers.
- To make relevant recommendations towards improving the rate of political news reportage by Nigeria’s newspapers.
This study becomes very important because it will enable the print media to re-assess their roles in bringing about political stability and development in the society. Politicians will find this study useful in re-examining their activities and behaviours in the political arena and how their relationship with the media affects the political stability of the nation. The masses will be able to anticipate how the relationship between the media and the political class could lead to the manipulation of their consciousness away from truth and reality.
Research Methodology
The methods used to obtain data for analysis in this study were documentary survey and content analysis. Documentary survey was used to generate secondary data, mostly in the literature review for this study. Data were collected through visit to libraries to read books, journals and other literature materials available for the researchers. Content analysis was used to generate primary data for the benefit of this study. In these selected newspapers, Vanguard and The Guardian newspapers were selected from among newspapers published in Nigeria and used for analysis on the theme of the study.
Content analysis as a method is used for generating primary data for a study because it allows for an objective, systematic and qualitative description of communication content.
The total number of newspapers covered by the study consisted of all the newspapers published in the country by Vanguard, and The Guardian from April 1 to June 30, 2013. The total number of Vanguard and The Guardian newspapers published within this period is 180. However, for practicability, only the political issues of these newspapers were used for the study.
Criteria for Newspaper Selection
- Circulation: The selected newspapers had a circulation range of 100,000 - 500,000 copies per day.
- Ownership: The newspapers were owned by private interests.
- Coverage: The newspapers evaluated for this study could be seen at newsstands across the country.
- Frequency of publication: The selected newspapers were dailies running from Sunday to Saturday.
Going by the afore-stated criteria, Vanguard and The Guardian newspapers were selected for the study.
Data collected in the course of this study were analysed using independent t-test statistical technique. The coding for this study was done by the researchers and a statistician colleague. This ensured that an acceptable inter- coder agreement, between two independent coders was achieved after some adjustments in the coding scheme had been made.
Stratified random sampling technique was used to select the sample for the study. The researchers used the systematic sampling method to arrive at the exact sample for the study. Stratified sampling technique ensures that a sample is drawn from a homogeneous subset of the population―that is, from a population that has similar characteristics; homogeneity in helping researchers to reduce sampling errors.
Using the sampling technique, the researchers entered the data arbitrarily, selecting the newspapers at an interval of six issue dates. There were 180 issues of the two newspapers during the study period of April to June, 2013. But issues of the newspapers to be analyzed had to be determined through an appropriate sample size. A sampling rate of one out of six, representing 20% of the population in drawing the size, allowing both newspapers equal chance of being selected as representatives of the population.
Systematic sampling was then used to arrive at the exact issue dates of the newspapers to be analyzed. Thus, from the sample population of 180, a sample size of 36 was reached after the researchers selected 18 issue dates to represent the population for each of the two newspapers. The following content areas of the two newspapers were analyzed: news, features, editorials, and cartoons.
The researchers counted every political news story, editorial comment, feature article and cartoon as a unit each.
Coding and Categorization
For coding purposes, the newspaper contents were operationally defined. The category system is used to classify factors affecting political awareness.
- Story types: News, Editorials, Features, Cartoons.
- Story placement: Front page, Back page, Inside page.
- Readers’ interest: Favourable (Positive), Unfavourable (Negative), Neutral.
- Subjects covered: Government/Politics, Health/Welfare, Education/Technology/Art, Business/Economy, Agri- culture, Crime/Violence, Religion/Morality, Sports/Entertainment, Others.
The data for this study were drawn from samples of Vanguard and The Guardian newspapers for a period of three months: April-June 2013. The researchers used content analysis in collecting data for this study.
Analysis of Political News Coverage
A total of 36 samples was collected from Vanguard and The Guardian newspapers for the three-month period under study. The samples were content analysed to ascertain the type of coverage each newspaper devoted to political issues. The collected data were analysed using simple percentage and the results presented in the following tables.
Table 1: Political News Coverage in Vanguard and The Guardian Newspapers
| Content Type | Vanguard | The Guardian |
|---|---|---|
| Political News Stories | 129 (82%) | 96 (89%) |
| Political Feature Articles | 20 (13%) | 8 (8%) |
| Political Editorials | 5 (3%) | 3 (3%) |
| Political Cartoons | 3 (2%) | 0 |
The figures show that Vanguard newspaper carried more political matters than The Guardian during the period under study.
Table 2: Placement of Political News Stories by Vanguard Newspaper
| Placement | Number of Stories | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Front Page | 38 | 24% |
| Inside Page | 121 | 76% |
This table shows that 24% of political news stories were placed on the front page, while 76% were placed on inside pages.
