Content Analysis on Reporter's Coverage of Corruption
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Date
2010-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
While stress ing the importance of the media's struggle against corru ption. one shou ld ask
whether or not the Ethiopian med ia houses make an effol1 to uncover co rruption cases in .
timely manner so that the public can make an informed dec ision. This thesis has.
therefore, attempted to assess the content corruption coverage by the Amharic bi-weekly,
Reporter fo r the period of two years. Content analysis was employed as the major
method. In-depth-interview was a lso made wi th two of the newspaper's staff. Both
quanti tat ive and qua li tative methods were used to collect the data. As a result. systematic
ra ndom sampling of 216 artic les were taken from all the 159 edi tions of the newspaper.
The analys is was done based on the type of story, theme, source, placement, au thor and
the case of individual vs. institutions. The data found from the interview as well as
underlyi ng theoretical frameworks were used to back up the analysis. Results sho\\ that
embezzlement was the leading form of corru pt ion theme. Reporter used anti-co rrupti on
watchdogs as its maj or sources of sto ry. From the research it is possible to conclude that
Reporter gave more prominence to corruption issues on institutional level rather than on
individual bases. The study further concluded that the biggest st rength of Reporter
emanates from the news section as majority of the news stories were authored by its own
staff reporters. The newspaper's coverage of corruption was dominated by the ncws
genre. In addi tion, significant number of the corruption stories were placed on the midd le
pages of the newspaper. From the overall find ing of this research, it is po~sib l e to
conclude that Reporter seems somewhat respons ib le in fulfilling its du ty as the Fourth
Estate by consistently re porting events of corruption in the country.
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Keywords
Coverage of Corruption