AN ANALYSIS OF NEWSPAPERS IN THE COVERAGE OF KIDNAPPING IN THE SOUTH WEST NIGERIA: A COMPARATIVE REVIEW OF PUNCH AND GUARDIAN NEWSPAPERS

ABSTRACT: The rate at which innocent lives have been muddied in Nigeria by the problem of kidnapping and abduction is concerning, since the impact of kidnapping is becoming severe in Nigerians to the point that everyone is sleeping with one eye open. This scenario has frightened both domestic and foreign investors away from establishing in Nigeria, which has contributed to  unfathomable economic downturn. Hence, this study aimed at having a comparative analysis of The Punch and The Guardian newspapers in the coverage of kidnapping in the South West Nigeria. It analyzed the content of two (2) Nigerian newspapers: The Punch and Guardian newspapers in their coverage of South West region (especially Ogun, Ekiti and Ondo) Kidnapping from  February 2021 to April 2021. The researcher systematically selected a sample size of 112 editions of the two (2) newspapers for three (3) months to generate data for the study. 79 editions out of the sample do not have stories on Kidnapping while 115 editions of the total sample yielded 194 stories on South West Kidnapping which were analyzed. The major findings are that Nigerian newspapers down played the coverage of issues about South West region Kidnapping. The Nigerian newspaper coverage of abduction and kidnapping in southwest suffered lack of in-depth and interpretative analysis. The findings showed that the volume of coverage was poor. The published materials were not given prominence by virtue of their placement or position in the newspapers as over 78.6% of them were placed in the inside pages of the newspaper. It was concluded that there was much of quantitative coverage than qualitative coverage because of the high disparity between the numbers of straight news items to interpretative news items. It was recommended that newspaper coverage of Kidnapping in  South West should be investigative and interpretative journalism-driven instead of mere reportage of straight news stories which doesn’t add much in the fight against terrorism and general information and education of the public.