Influence of geographical location of newspapers in media reportage of herdsmen-farmers clashes in Nigeria: A comparative study of The Nation and Daily Trust newspapers

Abstract

Herdsmen – farmers’ crisis is one of the major ongoing conflict situations in Nigeria. The media’s role in conflict situations have been subject of several studies. This paper looks at the factor of geographical location of media establishment and its effect in reporting conflict situations with the herdsmen – farmers’ clashes as focus of study. The Agenda-setting theory underpins the study while purposive sampling technique is used to select two national newspapers based on their geographical location –The Daily Trust, based in the North (Abuja city) and The Nation, located in the South (Lagos city) with 120 editions of each newspaper used for content analysis to generate relevant data. Data were analyzed with frequency count and simple percentages. Findings of the study show acorrelation between the geographical location of the newspapers and the leanings in their reportage of the herdsmen- farmers’ conflict – The Daily Trust’s reportage being pro the herdsmen, who are northerners while The Nation’snews stories have slants supportive of farmers mainly in the South and who bear the brunt of herdsmen rampage, a positioning seen as being a major contributor to the escalating situation. The paper recommends that stakeholder groups in the media should be more proactive in ensuring adherence to fairness and accuracy doctrine in news reportage with a view to enhancing media credibility, believability and consequent survival and profitability.