COVERAGE OF PASSAGE OF NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE ACT IN NIGERIA: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF GUARDIAN AND VANGUARD NEWSPAPERS

Abstract

This research effort was undertaken to examine newspapers coverage of passage of the 2019 National Minimum Wage Act in Nigeria and evaluate the level of prominence, direction, and frequency of coverage given to the stories by the chosen newspapers. The study was anchored on two theories- Agenda Setting Theory and Public Interest Theory. The study adopted the content analysis method as its research design. The editions of the Guardian and Vanguard newspapers published between 1^st July, 2019 to 31^st December, 2019 were used for generalization. Code sheet was the instrument for data collection. The study used purposive sampling technique and the composite week sampling technique to draw a sample size of 84 editions. Among other findings, the study revealed that news stories on the 2019 national minimum wage act were not given adequate coverage by the chosen dailies. Given the findings, it is recommended that the Nigerian media should be more aggressive in covering and reporting issues that affects the public such as the national minimum wage act which impacts the wellbeing of Nigerian workers by going beyond straight news and incorporating other formats of news reporting such as: features, editorials, columns, cartoon stories etc in order to give it more weight and relevance. Subsequent future stories on National Minimum wage should be given more prominence so that Nigerians will be better informed.