GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

ABSTRACT

This work is a content analysis of the “Newspaper Coverage of Niger Delta Region agitations and Implementation of amnesty Programme: June 2009 – May 2010”. Three Nigerian newspapers were studied to find out how the newspapers gave prominence to the coverage of amnesty granted by the Federal Government of Nigeria, to identify the information sources of the newspaper on their coverage, to determine the direction of the news reported by the newspaper and the content type in which the amnesty reports appear the most. It was found out that the newspapers gave in – depth coverage of it through varying degrees. The newspapers attached high prominence to the amnesty declaration as the three newspapers collectively gave 53.42% prominence on front page stories, the direction of the coverage was favorable as the newspapers collectively had 93.97% favorable. It is recommended that the Nigerian newspapers should give priority attention to the coverage of issues such as safety, health, agriculture, environment as was given to the Federal Government Amnesty declaration to the Niger Delta militants.