The practice and challenges of Ethiopian Broadcasting corporation court news reporting: in the case of Ethiopian Broadcasting corporation news channel
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Date
2023-01
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The goal of this study was to explore the practice and challenges of court news reporting in Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation news channel. The study was informed by theories of social learning, agenda setting and media's social responsibility role. Qualitative and quantitative methodological approach has been applied in order to address the study topics posed. Twenty reporters, producers and editors filled the questions that are designed to answer the research goal. Furthermore, five reporters and editorial bodies from EBC’s news channel were interviewed. The findings of the study indicated that EBC provides minimal attention to court news. The specific legal proceedings that are being reported on by the media are ones that are either in the best interest of the media or in the best interest of the government. And also the media is far from its declared standards of story selection, as few types of court stories have dominated the total story coverage. The media has given a frequent attention to the coverage for terrorism and corruption. corruption crime accounted for 55 percent of television coverage. 40 percent of the coverage dealt with terrorism. In contrast, the subjects that were arguably most significant and whose outcomes had the most impact on a broad number of people which are murder, robbery, sexual assaults and other civil rights issues combined took up barely less of all the coverage. The research also revealed that journalists wholly depend on court authorities and documents as sources. There have been a number of challenges in which court reporters have stated that the difficulties they confront in their line of work is internal and external. One of the issues is that the organization does not pay the deserving attention to court news. There is also information gap, which is another area that needs improvement. Finally, recommendations are made based on the research findings. Based on the finding the researcher recommended that, the coverage of court stories on EBC ought to alter its focus away from the coverage of cases involving corruption and terrorism and toward other court tales that risk the safety and tranquility of society. This would take the place of the primary emphasis that is currently placed on providing consistent coverage of instances involving corruption and terrorism.
Key words: court news, court cases, court categories, plaintiffs, hearings and media coverage
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court news, court cases, court categories