The Sun Politics Editor Fred Itua defends PhD thesis in development communication

The Politics Editor of The Sun Newspaper, Fred Itua, has successfully defended his doctoral thesis in Mass Communication, with a major in Development Communication, at Veritas University, Abuja.

The doctorate will be officially conferred on Itua at the university’s convocation in November this year. This will make him one of the few PhD holders who are media practitioners in Nigeria’s media space.

The thesis, titled “Newspapers’ Coverage of Irregular Migration in Nigeria, 2020 to May 2023,” was supervised by Prof. Tsebee Asor Kenneth and Prof. Armstrong A. Idachaba.

Itua presented a systematic content analysis of 362 articles published by The Punch, The Guardian and The Sun over 41 months. The study is regarded as the most extensive longitudinal empirical examination of migration reporting by Nigerian newspapers to date.

The findings raised serious questions about the media’s handling of one of the country’s most pressing social challenges. Nearly 80 per cent of migration-related articles appeared on inside pages, while fewer than 14 per cent received front-page placement.

Newspapers reported migration mainly as isolated incidents, such as trafficking, arrests and deportations, rather than as a systemic problem requiring structural analysis.

Three frames dominated the reportage: security (27.1 per cent), humanitarian (23.5 per cent) and criminal justice (21.0 per cent). Together, they accounted for nearly 72 per cent of all articles.

Institutional sources, including government agencies, international organisations and public officials, supplied more than 70 per cent of all citations. Migrants, returnees and victims of trafficking accounted for only 7.8 per cent.

The research also established that 48.6 per cent of the articles carried a negative tone. Stigmatising terms such as “illegal migrants” appeared in 39.5 per cent of the coverage, contrary to guidelines issued by the International Organisation for Migration.

Itua said the study was motivated by his conviction that Nigeria could not address irregular migration effectively without first understanding how the media constructed the issue for public consumption.

“If our media continues to frame migration primarily through security and criminality lenses, they inadvertently build public support for punitive responses rather than structural solutions,” he said.

The findings hold direct policy relevance for the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), the Nigeria Immigration Service and the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons.

The study offers these agencies an empirical baseline on the nature and quality of existing media coverage, which could guide more targeted engagement and advocacy.

For Itua, the defence marks the culmination of 15 years of frontline journalism combined with sustained scholarly inquiry. As Group Politics Editor of one of Nigeria’s most widely read dailies, he is well placed to translate the findings into editorial practice and to contribute to national debate on migration governance, media responsibility and public accountability.

His standing as both a practitioner and a scholar lends him the credibility to influence policy discourse on migration at institutional and grassroots levels across Nigeria.

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