Examination of Newspaper Reports of Tragedy Incidents Involving Nysc Members in Nigeria
CHAPTER ONE
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The objectives of the study are to find out whether the objectives and aims of NYSC have or have not been distorted by the tragic incidents involving the corps members.
- Determine whether The Vanguard Newspaper serves the function of surveillance and correlation in reporting tragic issues involving members.
- Identify The Vanguard Newspaper report on the tragic incidents involving NYSC members over a period.
- Identify possible solutions for a better report of the Vanguard Newspaper on the tragic incidents involving corps members.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
NEWS REPORTING
Reporting means gathering facts and presenting them objectively with ail news writing skills. It is an active, creative, long and tough process of news, gathering, ideas and opinion collection, fact finding in order to serve the general public by informing them and enabling them to make judgment of the issues of the time. The reporter either he/she is general assignment reporter, beat reporter or specialized reporter wants to know at all costs, what is going on and why, what has happened and why and who is involved in what manner. He/she reports it to satisfy the curiosity of the public by giving due coverage to 5Ws & 1H which the people want to know. News is not planted and cultivated in neat row for efficient harvesting and not necessarily in the tidy news offices. They are not developed in a vacuum. News is more likely to be found among the people, institutions, organizations, history etc. By the reporting of short news stories the reader can receive the information about the citizens, social, cultural and religious groups. Conducting interview is another part of reporting. Through interview news, personal ideas and opinions can be reported. Without reporting process there can be little business in news, and without news there can be no newspaper
Political Reporting
Generally the coverage of a political campaign oPa political personality is not sufficient. Much time and coverage needs to be given in following a candidate around and listening to the political speeches over and over again. Most of the political reporter’s time is spent while covering the purely political aspects of government and personalities who run the government. He/she goes beneath the surface of routine political events and comes up with stories of great importance. For political reporting the broad knowledge of election laws, system and organizational setup of different political parties, political organizations, precampaign activities, campaigns, election practices, polling laws and techniques and way of result coverage and their proper interpretation are required by the political reporter He/she has to interview candidates, write biographical sketches and evaluate the candidates’ position on major issues during a political campaign
Education and Research Reporting
Research and education go together Through research one can add new knowledge which is necessary for educating the nation and also for national development. The research programmes of different institutions and their findings •and achievements should be reported. The education system, its merits and demerits are the main sphere of education reporting. Public and private schooling and what is happening in universities and colleges regarding academic activities and developments, teachers and students training facilities, co-curricular activities, unions and a»ociatson« should be highlighted in the news stories. The budget allocated for education and its utilisation, literacy rate and programmes to increase literacy rate, adults education are the topics about which public has some curiosity to know. Trends in classrooms teaching and dozens of other significant problems can also be reported. The education and research reporter is normally expect-d to cover activities at all levels of the research and schooling system from policy making to the teachers in the classrooms. The research and education beat offers the opportunity for many routine stories as well as major news breaks, features and interpretative pieces.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought to examination of newspaper reports of tragedy incidents involving NYSC members in Nigeria
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
Population of the study
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher is interested in getting information on examination of newspaper reports of tragedy incidents involving NYSC members in Nigeria. 200 staff of vanguard newspaper, Lagos state was selected randomly by the researcher as the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
DATA ANALYSIS
The data collected from the respondents were analyzed in tabular form with simple percentage for easy understanding.
A total of 133(one hundred and thirty three) questionnaires were distributed and 133 questionnaires were returned.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was on examination of newspaper reports of tragedy incidents involving NYSC members in Nigeria. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing newspaper reports of tragedy incidents involving NYSC members in Nigeria
Summary
This study was on examination of newspaper reports of tragedy incidents involving NYSC members in Nigeria. Three objectives were raised which included: Determine whether The Vanguard Newspaper serves the function of surveillance and correlation in reporting tragic issues involving members, Identify The Vanguard Newspaper report on the tragic incidents involving NYSC members over a period and Identify possible solutions for a better report of the Vanguard Newspaper on the tragic incidents involving corps members. In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 staff of vanguard newspaper in Lagos state. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made editor, news correspondents, production mangers and junior staff were used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies
Conclusion
Tragedies attract media. After heinous crimes, natural or technological disasters, or other mass tragedies, the media flock to tell the story. As journalists write articles and editors decide what to print, they construct their audiences’ understanding of what happened, to whom, and why it happened. Several media critics have warned about the hyper-sensationalistic nature of the coverage of tragedies. Other critics note that the depiction of the tragic event sand the alleged causes of the events are often oversimplified. These findings alone should serve as a caution about believing everything one reads about tragic events. Our research adds to these criticisms and cautionary warnings. It is clear from our research that not all media sources tell the same story in the same way. The location of a media source relative to the tragic event influences how the story is told, what aspects of the story are emphasized, and, ultimately, the influence the media has on the communities they serve
Recommendation
Since different audiences recover from a tragedy by making sense of the event in different ways, it seems appropriate that different media sources would “make sense” of the tragedy indifferent ways
References
- Ahern, J., Galea, S., Resnick, H., Kilpatrick, D., Bucuvalas, M., Gold, J.,& Vlahov, D. (2002). Television images and psychological symptomsafter the September 11 terrorist attacks. Psychiatry: Interpersonal andBiological Processes, 65, 289–300.
- Ahern, J., Galea, S., Resnick, H. S., & Vlahov, D. (2004). Televisionimages and probable posttraumatic stress disorder after September 11:The role of and background characteristics, event exposures, andperievent panic. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 192, 217–226.
- Albarran, A. B. (2002). Media economics: Understanding markets, indus-tries, and concepts (2nd ed.). Ames, IA: Iowa State Press.
- Alvis-Banks, D., & Mallory, A. (2007, April 21). A cold and blusterymorning. The Roanoke Times. Retrieved from http://www.roanoke.com
- Argothy, V. (2005). Framing volunteerism in a consensus crisis: Massmedia coverage of volunteers in the 9/11 response. Disaster ResearchCenter, Preliminary Paper 335. Newark, DE: Disaster Research Center
- .Birkland, T. A. (1996). Natural disasters as focusing events: Policy com-munities and political response. International Journal of Mass Emer-gencies and Disasters, 14, 221–243.
