INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background of the Study

Mass media provide information for people at large so that there is acceptance of an idea to create interest. Mass media have come to occupy the position of eminence in the world today as it constitutes the nexus that controls the over-all socio-economic and political Development of every society. Without the media which, according to Okunna (2000), maintain constant flow of vital information for economic growth, national development is bound to be stagnated or at best be retarded.Owolabi (2008) also corroborated this position, adding that progressive policies and decisions are made on the basis of the quality of available information at ones disposal. To policy makers, information and knowledge about the desires of the people are the basic ingredient they need to respond to the opportunities and challenges in their economic and political domain.

Media reporting on corruption can play an important role in pressurizing the government to act in the public interest. By drawing the attention to behavior that is generally perceived as acceptable and exposing such behavior as corrupt, media can raise public awareness; activate anticorruption values; and generate outside pressure from the public against corruption, (Rose-Ackerman, (1999)).The impact of media reporting on corruption can be “tangible” and “intangible”, (Stapenhurst (2000)). It is tangible when some sort of visible outcome can be attributed to a particular news story or series of stories—for instance, the launching of investigation by authorities, the scrapping of a law or policy promoting opportunities for corruption, the impeachment or forced resignation of a crooked politician, the firing of an official, the launching of judicial proceedings, the issuing of public recommendations by a watchdog body, and so on. It is intangible when checks on corruption arise from the broader social climate of enhanced political pluralism, enlivened public debate and a heightened sense of accountability among politicians, public bodies and institutions that are inevitably the by-product of a hard-hitting, independent news media. How well media can perform the role of a watchdog on corruption, however, depends on a number of factors defined by the political, economic and legal environment in which media operate: media freedom of expression, access to information, ownership, competition, credibility and outreach are some of the key factors that have been identified as affecting the quality and effectiveness of media performance on corruption (Suphachalasai, 2005),