Coverage of organic agricultural news in nigerian Newspapers

Abstract

The study was on coverage and content analysis of organic agricultural news in 3 selected Nigerian Newspapers. The Nigerian Tribune, Guardian and Punch newspapers. The study covered the period of January 2010 – July 2012. Result showed that Tribune (61.9%) has the highest number of reportage with punch being the least.The newspapers reported more general issues (66.7%) than the other content categories which are food safety news (19%), economic concentration news (9.5%), and environmental news (4.8%).Tribune allotted more space to organic agricultural news with 76.8% than Guardian 15.2% and Punch 8.1%. There is no significant difference in the types of newscoverage on Organic agricultural articles in the selected Newspapers (F =0.227, p =0.799). The study concluded that coverage of organic agriculture is low, this affects the level of awareness of the people in the practice. The study recommends that Nigeria press should be sensitive to issues on organic agriculture