Sponsored Content and the Displacement of Public Interest News: A Survey of Journalistic Perceptions in North Central Nigeria

This study examined the prevalence of news commercialization among journalists in North Central Nigeria interrogating the question of whether the practice constitutes an occasional departure from professional norms or a normalized feature of everyday newsroom decision-making. Grounded on the political economy of the media theory and adopting a convergent parallel mixed-methods design, the study surveyed 372 journalists registered with the Nigeria Union of Journalists across the seven states (Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, Plateau, and the Federal Capital Territory) and conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 journalists possessing a minimum of ten years' professional experience. Survey results indicated moderate-to-high agreement on the prevalence of commercialized practice (aggregate mean = 3.31), with the strongest consensus (72.0%) around the displacement of stories of public importance by sponsored content. Qualitative data corroborated and deepened this picture: all 15 interview participants described commercialization as routine rather than exceptional. The findings suggest that news commercialization in North Central Nigeria has moved from being an ethical exception to an institutionalized feature of media practice, and the study recommends that government should take deliberate steps to stabilize the macroeconomic conditions and infrastructure that underlie the financial pressures identified in this study. Keywords: News commercialization, Prevalence, Political Economy.