Abstract:
Newspapers are usually reluctant to publish agricultural and rural development news
items due to the opportunity cost considerations of usage of space for paid advertisement.
However, several sectors of the nation’s development depend on information dissimilation
on agriculture and rural areas. This study assessed fifty-six (56) editions of the Guardian
and This Day Newspaper on reportage of agricultural news from January 2015 to
October 2019. The general objective of the study was to analyze reportage of agricultural
news by Guardians and This Day Newspaper from 2015 to 2019. Content analysis and
opportunity cost approaches were adopted to realize the content of the study. Descriptive
statistics and opportunity cost were used in data analysis. Result shows that the mean
space of 2111.025cm2
published news free led to the opportunity cost of N30,442,458.22
and including a Value Added Tax of N1,449,640.86. Prominence of news was mainly at
the center spread (84%, the Guardian and 100%, This Day). The most reported news
items were on Rice (11%) and poultry (9.6%) enterprise and the least (1% each) were on
snails, cereals, beans and on youth empowerment. The study concluded that despite the
fact that these newspapers were known to report the selected news of interests.
Newspapers were yet to give Agriculture news the desired attention. It was recommended
more prominent should be given to agricultural news by newspapers in Nigeria as part of
their traditional role of serving society in which they operate their businesses.
