Television News Coverage of COVID-19 Pandemic in Nigeria: Missed Opportunities to Promote Health Due to Ownership and Politics

Abstract

This study examined Television news coverage of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria from February 2020 to July 2020. The focus was on African Independent Television (AIT), a privately owned TV, and Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), a government-owned TV. We also interviewed (n = 30) participants to understand their view on media coverage of the pandemic. We found that the TV stations paid adequate attention to the issues of COVID-19. However, the private media allocated more prominence to the coverage of COVID-19. By implication, the private media had more COVID-19 stories telecasted on its headline which also appeared as the first headline in many cases. Furthermore, they had more stories that were aired 61 seconds and above. The findings also showed that the government media outlet cited more of government officials while the private media dueled more on the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). The private media had more negative tone stories, and most of its stories used visual and motion footages. Overall, our findings suggest that media ownership and politics play a large role in the coverage of COVID-19 in Nigeria. This has affected the attitude of the public as many of them no longer see the pandemic as something serious, but rather politically motivated virus to highlight the failings of the political party in power.