Abstract

<p>This study investigated how The Punch, The Guardian and The Vanguard newspapers reported the activities of the G5 governors in the build up to the 2023 general elections in Nigeria. The primary focus was to evaluate the perspectives from which the reporters framed the G5 governors' stories before, during and after the elections. The study delineated three objectives which traversed on the need to determine how The Punch, The Guardian and the Vanguard newspapers framed the activities of the G5 governors, identify the dominant frames used in the reportage of the G5 governors by the newspapers reviewed. Framing and Conflict theories guided the study. The design adopted was content analysis and the reports on the G5 governors from the three newspapers between April, 1st 2022 and March 31st 2023 constituted the data for analysis. Using a constructed calendar, 48 issues on the G5 governors were selected as the sample for the study. The study found from the analysis that the three newspapers framed the activities of the G5 governors mainly as straight news stories and interviews. While some stories were sourced from press briefings, others were through interviews as disclosed from the reviewed stories. It was also found that the dominant frames used by the three newspapers were peace reconciliation and political frames. The insights recorded from the stories were the intents of the G5 governors as intertextual referencing was not done to link previous actions of the governors to their agitations during the electoral process. The study concludes that while it is pertinent that journalists be neutral and objective when choosing angles to a story, it is clear that neutrality can be relative especially when these journalists are hoodwinked or restrained by editorial policy, socio-religious attachments, educational competence, personal beliefs and general social upbringing as well as the need to survive. From the findings made in the study, it is recommended that persistent conflicts like the G5 stories ought to be investigated on a deeper level to unravel the hidden reason behind the G5 agitations. Also, when reporting topical issues like politics, the human-interest angle should be the dominant angle to frame from as this is the social responsibility of journalists.</p>