ISSUES IN NEWSPAPER MANAGEMENT IN NIGERIA: A

COMPARATIVE REVIEW OF FOUR NEWSPAPER ORGANISATIONS

BY

SOLOMON S. TOMMY
(COMMUNICATION PROFESSIONAL; GRADUATE STUDENT,
DEPARMENT OF MASS COMMUNICATION, UNIVERSITY OF
LAGOS, NIGERIA)
saintsolo@gmail.com
+2348074557740

ABSTRACT

The realist perspective that newspapers are both a public function and a
business was the primary motivation for this study, with the view to looking
at management systems available in the newspaper industry in Nigeria, the
challenges they faced and the prospects for the future. The purpose of the
study was to determine the existing management styles, structures and
strategies of newspapers in Nigeria, and the extent to which these have
impacted on the ability of the newspaper business in Nigeria to mitigate the
threats they face, both internally (ownership influence, ethical
considerations, etc) and externally (economic recession, fall in newspaper
purchase, influence of new media, e.g. Web and mobile Internet). Objectives
of the study included the determination of management structures,
problems faced, and strategies to tackle such problems. It also considered
the important factor of ownership influence on management strategies and
editorial decisions.
Literature reviewed looked to establish the popular types of newspaper
management structures and ownership systems available in Nigeria, and
paid particular attention to how these affected operations, drawing
inferences from countries like Kenya, Russia and Sweden. It also looked at
the impact of technology in the operations of newspaper organisations,
especially in the area of how they gather and disseminate news, which is
their primary – if not only – product. It provide literature on how social
media has changed the media habits of people, and the potential and
hazards that this presented for traditional newspapers. Given its nature, the
systems and technological determinism theories were used to provide
theoretical fulcrums for the arguments made.
It being an expert study, the indepth interview method was used, and a
sample of eight respondents were selected from the four newspaper
organisations used for the study, which included Guardian, Sun, Tribune
and Vanguard. The respondents were sampled purposively and the research
instrument was administered to them via face-to-face and email channels.
Their responses were recorded and analysed, and presented to answer the
research questions. Findings included that the dominant form of newspaper
management structure in the newspapers studied is the three-stage
management structure involving the owner/publisher, an Editor-in-Chief,
and a general editor; and that the cost of production was the biggest
environmental factor that caused concern for newspaper management.
Recommendations were that newspaper organisations must endeavour to
leverage on new media platforms to increase their reach and relevance in a
cost-efficient manner, while the government needs to assist with subsidies
that would help to cut down production costs.
INTRODUCTION
In the discussion of the role of the media in society, it is hard not to
recognise the significant contributions of the newspaper business. Besides
the fact that it was the first medium of mass communication, and a
forerunner of other mass media forms, the fact that we talk of “freedom of
the press” when the issue of media rights is being expressed is an eternal
testimony of the place that newspapers have in the history of the media the
world over (Alozie, 2009). As with other media of mass communication, it is
hard not to notice that with the advancements in information and
communication technology, print media (which extends beyond newspapers
to include magazines, and other media in printed form) are changing, from
the dull early newspapers and magazines produced without photographs to
the present editions that use photographs not only to attract attentions, but
to beautify the pages (Wirtz, 2001; Picard, 2003).
It is clear that this responsibility that the media have to perform to society is
guided, not by society’s information needs, but also by the professional
standards that the newspapers have to adhere to. Beyond that as well is the
fact that the newspaper is a business concern, and must therefore perform
its journalistic duties with a mind of doing so profitably, so as to ensure
viability of the newspaper as a going concern. This suggests that newspaper
management, not only looks to ensure that the public is served with
information on a regular basis, but also to ensure that this is achieved
profitably.
Given the recent trends with print media losing ground in the face of new
media incursion into information sharing and dissemination, coupled with
the adverse economic trends the world over which has bought affected
purchase volume and advertising budgets, this study looked to identify
issues and concerns facing contemporary Nigerian newspapers’
management, with a bid to proffering possible solutions.
The paper aimed to achieve the following objectives:
1. To understand the management structures of newspaper
organisations in Nigeria, limited to the four newspapers that will be
identified;
2. To identify the innovations which have threatened the viability of
newspapers in Nigeria;
3. To determine environmental factors (social, political, economic, etc)
that pose a threat to newspapers in Nigeria;
4. To ascertain the influence of ownership on the management strategies
of Nigerian newspapers;
5. To determine the strategies put in place to address threats and
achieve competitive viability.
 Drawing from the objectives relayed above, this study attempted to
answer the following research questions:
1. What types of management structures apply to newspaper
organisations in Nigeria?
2. To what extent have innovations threatened the viability of
newspapers in Nigeria?
3. What environmental factors (social, political, economic, etc) pose a
threat to newspapers in Nigeria?
4. How much influence does ownership of newspapers have on the
management strategies of Nigerian newspapers?
5. What strategies put in place to address threats and achieve
competitive viability?

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In this study, the personal interview method was selected. This is due to the
fact that in the opinion of the researcher, only experts can give the answers
that would be useful in dealing with the research problematique. The
interview is a general technique for collecting data in for research purposes,
and is more preferred in qualitative studies, and is executed using either of
four approaches which are, personal interviews, postal (or mailed) surveys,
telephone interviews and surveys on the internet (Wegner, 2000:73).
Through purposive sampling, the researcher first randomly selected four
newspapers from the above list, to include The Guardian, Sun Newspapers,
Vanguard, and Tribune. He then drew up a list of all the top and middle
management staff of the selected newspapers, and selected the sample from
the populated list. Ultimately, the sample was comprised of eight (8)
interviewees. Emails and phone calls was used to recruit the constituents of
the sample, as well as schedule the interviews.

CONCEPTUAL REVIEW
NEWSPAPERS IN NIGERIA: HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY
CONCERNS IN MANAGEMENT
The history of newspaper in Nigeria dates back to 1859 when an Anglican
Priest, Rev. Henry Townsend established the first newspaper- “Iwe Irohin fun
awon Ara Egba ati Yoruba”, translated to mean “Newspaper for the Egba-
speaking people and Yorubas” (Sunday, 2008). The newspaper was set up to
help in the spreading of the gospel and literacy among the people. It
combined cultural, political, social and religious commentaries in an effort
to reach the readers. The advent of Iwe Irohin was followed by other
publications which later were used as a tool by the nationalists to oppose
colonial rule. The demise of ‘Iwe Iroyin’ later resulted to the emergence of
other newspapers like Anglo-African, Lagos Time and Gold Coast Advertiser,
Lagos Observer, The Eagle and Lagos Critic, The Mirror, The Nigerian
Chronicle, The Lagos Standard, Lagos Weekly Record, African Messenger,
The West African Pilot, Nigerian Tribune amongst others, which Sunday
(2008) describes as being in the second phase of newspaper development in
the country as it represented a break of religious newspapers (or more aptly,
newspapers that had religious groups as their proprietors). The era not only
resulted to the emergence of secular newspapers in Nigeria but also gave
birth to articulate and vibrant nationalist newspapers established by
journalists turned politicians, who made judicious use of this created
institution {press} to fight colonialism under nationalist struggle which
gradually led to Nigeria’s independence in 1960, which has cemented their
place in the annals of Nigeria’s political history and development since then.
Corroborating this, Kukah (1999) stated that journalism was the major
vehicle through which the anti-colonial struggle in Nigeria was carried out.
Newspapers served as platforms for mobilising the people, spreading
nationalist awareness and for opposing the worst manifestation of colonial
subjugation and the racialism which is customary to them. Also Fred Omu
(1978) in Ismail (2011) said the early Nigerian press availed the reader of the
most distinguished intellectual forum in Nigeria history, one in which the
high standard of debate, discussion, the quality of thought and expression
did not fail to fascinate the modern reader.
The current generation of newspapers in Nigeria however, have their roots in
the 1980s and after, with the exception of Tribune, which has continued
publishing since it was established. Newspapers like Guardian, the Punch,
Concord, Comet (which is the forebear of the current ‘The Nation newspaper),
Vanguard, Sun, This Day, and others were established within this period,
but they have served to give the Nigerian newspaper industry the
complexion it has today.
The primary issues that this paper takes into consideration are the concerns
of technological innovation, and the attendant issues of ownership. There is
little doubt that the operations of newspapers have undergone a
transformation as a result of technology. From Gutenberg’s printing press to
the automated printing process available in newspapers today, technology
has been at the core of every revolution that has characterised the
newspaper industry till date. Even though there are positions such as those
held by Obijiofor and Green (2001) and Okoro and Diri (2013) that the
future of newspapers is bright because there are inherent qualities that
traditional newspapers possess which would enable them to withstand the
Internet news revolution, in truth, there are also reasons to worry, especially
since the Internet is encroaching into newspapers’ audiences and their
advertising revenue, not to mention the proliferation of news sources on the
Internet.
Ownership as a concern in Nigeria media environment is well documented.
Ukonu (2005) points out the first, and perhaps most pressing concern:
ethical practices. He argues that ownership usually influences the news
selection and dissemination process, which may dilute objectivity and
impair balance, thus rubbishing the sanctity of news that newspapers have
now become known to uphold. Government-owned media are converted to
government stooges, while privately-owned media find that they are forced to
pander to the wishes of their proprietors, especially in an environment like
Nigeria where political parallelism is the dominant trend in media ownership
(Ohaja, 2005; Okoye, 2002). This is also the same in countries that share
same political traits. For instance, Okech (2008) found that in Kenya,
objectivity though practiced in some instances, was widely affected by the
editorial line of the said newspapers. The editorial line was largely pegged to
ownership influences in most cases. More so, According to Bagdikian
(2004), ownership influence can be associated with three major sources of
bias. First, media content reflects the owner’s “highly conservative political
and economic values.” Second, the reliance on advertising makes the media
averse to offending other firms. Third, and most relevant to this study,
conflicts of interest can bias reporting on the firm’s other interests.
Beyond that, it can be argued that professionalism might also suffer on
account of ownership influence. Political economy is a key consideration at
this point, because as Zubascu (2013) alludes to, the relationship between
journalists (who work at newspapers), owners (of those newspapers),
politicians (who own or are interested in using these newspapers to promote
their political agenda) and advertisers (who use newspapers to promote their
economic interest in exchange for funding them through advertising
revenue) is one that is blurred and results in conflict of interest, which as
Norris and Odugbemi (2009) recognise, impedes their ability to play their
roles (especially as watchdog) effectively. Beyond conditions of service, which
in Nigeria is appalling in some cases (Uwosomah, 2010), journalists are left
to handle government highhandedness, human rights abuse, physical
assaults, death threats, etc for which they do not enjoy adequate cover from
the owners of the organisations they work for – which is symptomatic of the
general Nigerian economy however, lending credence to the applicability of
the systems theory to this work – which also affects the objectivity of their
major product – news – and could tell on how attractive they would be to
prospective advertisers.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
SYSTEMS THEORY
One theoretical postulation that will explain this paper’s intent is the
systems theory. Systems theory considers phenomena (newspaper
management issues) as constituents of an interconnected whole (newspaper
operations). The position on which systems theory is based concerns itself
mainly with how a sub-system’s (or component part) work/place is analysed
within the system.
Anaeto, Solo-Anaeto and Tejumaiye (2009) also make reference to the
systems theory, which according to them, holds that everything is a section
of a bigger, mutually dependent organisation set-up; as such, it would
require an understanding of the parts and the relationship that exists
between them to really know the whole. Clearly, it addresses the problems
with the Nigerian newspaper industry. Issues in management represents a
part of the system, with sub-parts (both internal and external) including
ownership influence, professionalism, partisanship and media parallelism,
rising influence of new technologies on the viability of traditional media,
amongst others. It therefore is within logic to assert that the Nigerian print
media industry – the system – has potential to have a crisis of credibility and
sustainability if these concerns are not quickly dealt with.

FINDINGS
Analysed data collected through the face-to-face and email interviews
provided the following findings:
1. The dominant form of newspaper management structure in the
newspapers studied is the three-stage management structure
involving the owner/publisher, an Editor-in-Chief, and a general
editor (along with business executives on the same level in the
hierarchy to manage the business aspect and report to the Editor-in-
Chief).
2. Technological innovations, including online and social media
platforms, are both a blessing and a curse to newspaper organisations
almost at the same time, both enhancing their functions but
impacting negatively on their long-term survival and relevance.
3. The cost of production was the biggest environmental factor that
caused concern for newspaper management
4. There is a dominant perspective that owners wield considerable
influence on how the newspapers are run.
5. The primary strategy to tackle the environmental problems faced was
to find a way to cut costs, which is the most pressing concern that
they faced. There are also references to taking advantage of the
potentials of online/new media as a solution to the biting problems of
dwindling readership

RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on the findings of the study, the following are recommended:
1. To checkmate the challenge, newspaper organisations should, at all
times package good and contemporary editorial, feature articles, and
 other genres that the online newspapers may not treat in great
details.
2. Newspaper organisations should build relationship with their
customers through events sponsorship, marketing promotions, public
relations, advertising,, etc Relationship building essentially involves
delivering the goods and services that customers want and need,
getting products (in this case newspapers) to them at the right time,
in the right place and at a price they are willing to pay.
3. Newspaper organisations should conduct periodic researches to
discover interests of readers, brand’s position in the market and to
meet the needs promptly. Successful business planning requires
information about potential target markets, the competition,
individual customers, and their reaction to products. The periodic
researches to be evolved include the following: business research,
operations research, product research, sales and marketing research,
etc
4. Government should provide subsidies, especially for the importation
of raw materials and machineries until such a time as local capacity
would have been built to cater to the needs of the Nigerian newspaper
industry
5. Newspapers must endeavour to leverage on new media platforms to
increase their reach and relevance in a cost-efficient manner

CONCLUSIONS
The place of newspapers in the history of the mass media is nearly hallowed
and sacrosanct. Newspapers have played a key role in different revolutions
since the Renaissance period, and its social relevance is still key in our
world today. It is however clear, that technology is changing how we
consume media products, and if television (which was the biggest threat to
newspapers before) was not spared from the huge impact of the Internet,
then it is unlikely that newspapers will escape. But the argument is then
made, that focus these days is not on the media form, but on the content.
There is therefore the need for those in the newspaper business (especially
in Nigeria) to still have some hope; but this hope can only be sustained if
efforts are made to ensure that the content is revolutionary and will be
captivating. It cannot be business as usual for newspapers anymore, and
only those owners/managers who know this and adapt accordingly will
survive.
REFERENCES
Alozie, V. O. (2009). The print media: Newspaper and magazine production,
editing, graphics and organization. Owerri: Pilvic Communications
Bagdikian, Ben. (2004). The New Media Monopoly. Boston: Beacon Press.
Kukah, M.H. (1999) Democracy and Civil Society in Nigeria, Ibadan:
Spectrum Books Ltd
Ismail, A. O. (2011) The Nigerian Press: The Journey So Far. Continental
Journal of Sustainable Development, Vol. 2: pp. 8 – 19
Obijiofor, L. and Green, K. (2001) New technologies and future of
newspapers, Asia Pacific Media Educator, Vol. 11: pp. 88-99
Odugbemi, S. and Norris, P. (2009) “Policy Recommendations”. In Norris, P.
Public Sentinel: News Media and Governance Reforms. Washington, D.C:
The World Bank
Ohaja, E. U. (2005). Feature Writing Simplified. Enugu: EL DEMARK
Publishers.
Okech, K. S. A. (2008) “The impact of ownership on media content : An
exploratory case study of Nation Media Group and Standard Newspaper
Group; Kenya”. Available online at:
http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/5703, retrieved on
11/03/2014
Okoye, I. (2002). “Feature Writing in the Era of Multi-Media Competition” in
Okunna, C.S. (Ed.) Teaching Mass Communication: A Multi-dimensional
Approach. Enugu: New Generation Books
Picard, R.G. (2003). Cash Cows or Entrecôte: Publishing Companies and
Disruptive Technologies. Trends in Communication Vol. 11 (2): pp. 127-
136
Sunday, O. (2008). “Historical Context of Media Development”. In Akinfeleye,
R. (ed) Mass Media and Society: A Multi-perspective Approach. Lagos:
Dept. of Mass Comm.
Uwosomah, A. (2010) “The Vibrancy Of Nigeria Newspaper Industry: Why
Newspaper Business Still Booms Even With Low Audience Readership
And Subscription”. Available online at:
http://www.slideshare.net/austenonereader/occupational-hazards-of-
journalists-in-nigeria-4410716, retrieved on 14/03/2014
Wegner, T. (2000) Quantitative methods for marketing decisions, Cape
Town: The Rustica Press.
Wirtz, B.W. (2001). Reconfiguration of Value Chains in Converging Media
and Communications Markets. Long Range Planning, Vol. 34, pp. 489-
506.
Zubascu, F. V. (2013) Media independence and democracy: Influential
relations between journalists, politicians, ownership and advertisers in
Romania. Being unpublished Masters of Arts dissertation submitted to
the Department of Political Science, Central European University