This files contain data and the coding logic for examining the agenda-building capacity of U.S. and Chinese foreign missions’ information subsidies in selected legacy news media in two African countries - Nigeria and Egypt. Amongst other things, we find substantial but uneven capacity in these information subsidies. While U.S. subsidies made news coverage more often, Chinese subsidies sometimes received strong prominence after uptake, especially in Egypt. In addition, the information subsidies were often reproduced with significant similarities, in terms of major issue and attribute, tone, and text. Among the message-specific features examined, local focus had the most significant and consistent association with most agenda-building capacity indicators, including uptake, total related-story count, and prominence.