Media Ownership, Political Party Affiliation and Objective Reporting in Nigeria: Analysis of Cases

Abstract

The numerous functions which the media perform in the society are made possible through the efforts of journalists and reporters who assemble stories they consider newsworthy for consumption by the audience. This study examined the influence of media owners who have political party affiliation on objective reporting. The aim of the study was to identify and analyse cases where in media owners have influenced objective reporting in Nigeria resulting from their political affiliation. The study employed the qualitative approach and analysed some purposively sampled documented cases. The theory of media ownership was adopted as the theoretical base of this work. The study found out that the cases analysed showed that media owners who belong to political parties influence objective reporting in Nigeria. The study concludes that as long as the media owners are members of political parties, news stories will always slant in favour of the owners of the media organisations which compromise the tenets of objective reporting in Nigeria.