Newspaper framing of the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria

Since the corona virus disease broke out in Wuhan, Hubei Province in China in 2019, the world has known no peace in terms of global health. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a new lifestyle of wearing facemask called the ‘new normal’. The media particularly newspapers have been fighting this global pandemic through different reports such as straight news, features, opinions and cartoons among others.  However, newspapers seem not to be doing enough in this war in their editorials. The above dictated this study which examined how Nigerian newspapers framed the second wave of COVID-19 in their editorials. Using qualitative research method, the study analysed contents of the published editorials of selected newspapers on the second wave of COVID-19 in Nigeria. Data analysed were presented in simple statistics while hypotheses raised were tested using Chi-square Statistical Technique.  The study found that Vanguard and Punch newspapers (the selected newspapers) published very few editorials (poor frequency) on the second phase of the pandemic in Nigeria despite the deadly effects of the disease. The study also revealed 13 types of frames (content categories of frame) in the editorials published on the second upsurge of the pandemic in Nigeria by the selected newspapers.