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ABSTRACT
Agricultural input towards national development dropped to an abysmal level on account of oil boom and other problems besieging agricultural sector. Nevertheless, the importance of agriculture to national development cannot be over-emphasized especially now that there is rapid decline in oil prices, massive unemployment, hunger and starvation etc. Therefore, it is in the light of this that this study examines newspapers coverage of agricultural news for national development in Nigeria. The researcher embarked on this study with the intent of achieving four objectives. Based on the objectives of the study, four research questions were formulated to serve as a guide for this study. The researcher also limited the scope of this study to Vanguard and Punch newspapers for a period of six months (January to June, 2022). The development media theory and the uses and gratification theory were deemed appropriate as the suitable theoretical framework for this study. The content analysis method was also adopted for this study. The study found out that 95% of stories studied covered agriculture positively. However, in a sharp contrast, the study also revealed that no agricultural news was seen in front, back or centre spread pages of the two newspapers indicating lack of prominence. The study concluded that newspapers’ coverage of agricultural news has not been impressive. It was however, recommended among other things, that media organizations in the country should assign special beat reporters to cover agriculture news. Where this is already in place, efforts must be made by such reporters to increase their level of agriculture news reportage.
