Kelechi Amakoh reports on the launch of a report on rural poverty reporting in Nigeria
Reportage of rural poverty issues by the print media in Nigeria is relatively low.
This was one of the major the outcomes of a survey titled Monitoring Rural Poverty Reporting by the International Press Centre (IPC), Lagos in conjunction with World Association for Christian Communication (WACC).
The one- month survey monitored the coverage of issues relating to poverty by six selected national newspapers in Nigeria-The Punch, The Nation, Vanguard, ThisDay, Guardian and Daily Sun in April 2013.
The survey focused on the prominence given to rural poverty related stories, total news space allotted, the genre of reportage-news, features, interviews, the scope of the report and the tone of the story.
From its findings, The Punch gave the most prominence with two picture stories making front page while it had the highest space content on rural poverty issues giving 6.8 per cent of its total news/report content page. It was also considered the newspaper with the highest number of most sympathetic reports with 267 out of a total of 279 reports.
For poverty issues reported in features format, Daily Sun had the highest number with 32 reports out of a total 67 reports while The Nation had the highest scope of its reports focusing on rural issues with 32.1 per cent.
The full details of the survey was presented to journalists at a briefing of the media survey on rural poverty reporting in Nigeria by IPC held in Lagos on Friday, December 20.
Reviewing the report, Dr. (Mrs) Abigail Ogwezzy-Ndisika, a Senior lecturer at the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos (UNILAG) lauded the efforts of IPC on the media survey.
“The survey has revealed notable capacity gap in the ability of journalists and media organisations to report issues relating to rural poverty concerns.
“This report will serve as a useful tool for candid and constructive public discourse/interventions to enable all stakeholders concerned about the level of poverty in Nigeria make focused interventions and informed decisions,” the don said.
Justifying the need for the media survey on rural poverty reportage, Mr. ‘Lanre Arogundade, Director IPC said there is high rate of poverty in the country.
“Poverty pervades the land and afflicts more than half of the population despite the fact that the Nigerian constitution defines the primary purpose of governance as the welfare and security of the people.”
Arogundade called on media professionals to ‘seize the initiative’-the media survey- to ensure poverty is banished in the country.
On 2014 budget just presented, he urged the ‘media to scrutinize the budget to determine well or not it will address the issue of poverty.
Speaking at the event, WACC Africa member, Lekan Otufodunrin commended IPC for the report which he noted will provide a good guide for the media in Nigeria to focus more on poverty issues.
Otufodunrin who is also the Online Editor of The Nation therefore called on journalists to break the monotony of reporting only few sectors of the economy and other issues in the country.
“I want to believe that this kind of report will help journalists become more specialised many areas that are critical to improving the standard of living in the country.
“I don’t know how many people who report development in its entirety, climate change, health matters but with this report, journalists should expand their scope of coverage.”
