Oil, gas and goodwill: Assessing press coverage of Nigerias oil industry CSR activities

Oil, being the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy has continuously generated controversies at various levels, particularly between government, exploration companies and host communities. One useful method of dousing such tension is to display a sense of empathy, creating some level of ownership mindset in natives and residents of host communities and the nation at large. This study probes into the volume of coverage of Nigeria’s oil industry CSR activities by selected newspapers; the directions given to the reportage of Nigeria’s oil industry CSR activities by the selected national dailies and issues of Nigeria’s oil industry CSR activities that received the greatest coverage by the selected national dailies. Content analysis, employing multi-stage and purposive sampling techniques was utilized for this study. Editions of The Guardian, The Nation, Vanguard and Punch for the year 2016 were analysed for this study. Data collected using the coding sheet was analyzed using Chi-Square and the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). This study posits those stakeholders and practitioner in NNPC’s Public Relations and CSR arm should proactively engage the media, to boost confidence and goodwill in the oil and gas industry, thereby minimizing potential conflicts and mitigating the effects of lingering ones. 
 
   
 
 Key words: Corporate social responsibility, goodwill, public relations, newspaper coverage, oil and gas.


INTRODUCTION
As continuously reported in the local media, destruction of farmlands, water bodies, air and oil pollution, to mention a few have caused varying concerns in the happenings of the oil and gas industry vis-à-vis the preservation and sustainability of their host communities and environs. The environmental impacts of their activities include deterioration of natural resources and traditional infrastructures (Isiaka, 2010) The Environment Impact Assessment Act in Nigeria of 1992 is as yet defined by environmental issues, impromptu development and expanding issues of homegrown and mechanical garbage removal and contamination. Monetary advancement exercises, particularly in the oil and gas area, speed up the deficiency of dirt and deforestation, loss of living space, loss of species and loss of biodiversity, just as degeneration of wetlands. Water deficiencies and floods lead to the decay of metropolitan ecological quality and assume a significant part in the transmission of transmittable infections. Debasement in the water area is another significant part of natural corruption around the world, particularly in agricultural nations, including Nigeria (Onyenekenwa, 2011).
Corporate social responsibility as stated by Eleanor (2015) is taken by numerous firms, organization, industries as a tactic to global growth that brings ethical issues to the fore. It focuses on consideration of the social and environmental impacts of business activity and how they can be mitigated. It is viewed as one of the techniques where organizations attempt to make a positive effect on society while working with more prominent pressure upon the commitments an organization has to the locale, especially for beneficial exercises.
It is further described as a social agreement between the business and a community, whereby the community permits the business to operate within its jurisdiction to obtain jobs for residents and revenue through taxation and other means agreed upon by concerned parties (Adebisi, 2017).
For as much as the organization, corporations, corporate bodies, firm and other companies practice the corporate social responsibility concept, little credence is giving to such related activities in the newspaper. Since newspapers can be used to modify and shape the attitude or opinions of its reader and can also be used as a veritable tool for aiding development in the country, this study seeks to conduct an assessment of newspaper coverage of Nigeria's oil industry CSR activities. This study aimed to determine the coverage pattern of newspaper reporting given to CSR activities carried out by the oil industry in Nigeria. Geipel (2016) recounting the words of Rhys (2012) stated that -CSR is usually more about what a company is not doing, rather than what the company is. The meaning of this is that whatever a firm, industry or organization takes from any society for her existence and survival, no matter the quantity of what is taken, there should be a corresponding symbiotic form of relationship by way of contributing to the overall success of the society. This can be achieved through the execution of germane projects that would be of great benefit to where it, that is, where the organization is currently domiciled in. The organization's giveback game to society should be commensurate to what is taken. The above is the whole essence of corporate social responsibility; contributing to the positive image of an organisation.

Statement of problem
The print media, especially newspapers, as stated by Odunlami and Soremekun (2013) have been identified as one of the most effective means of communication. This is due to its unique features of reader control, exposure and permanence. Apart from that, it is a reliable channel being used by policymakers, government and organization to reach their audience to achieve their communication objectives. In a publication dated December 8, 2016, with the headline -CSR in Nigeria: The untold role of International Oil Companies (IOCs) in national development‖ on Vanguard Newspaper, it was stated that one of Nigeria's leading Oil producers in the country, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) cooperated with Mobil Producing Nigeria (MPN) Joint Venture (JV) undergrad grant which made available to Nigerian students from all walks of the nation, while 50% of this sum or N2 billion went to students from Akwa Ibom state, being the state facilitating the majority of the organization's exercises in Nigeria.
Likewise, over N57 million has similarly been spent on the NNPC/MPN JV secondary school grant targeted at impoverished students from Akwa Ibom State throughout the most recent four years while over N1 billion has been spent on the NNPC/Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited (ExxonMobil auxiliary organization) global postgraduate grant to Nigerian students two decades ago.
As stated, by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (2016), the competition is considered as a formative interaction to energize greatness in the midst of secondary school students throughout the nation as they are considered future of this extraordinary country. The choice is essential for its corporate social responsibility and facilitation of its mission to impact the lives of Nigerians from a positive perspective.
Aside from the aforementioned, not many CSR activities of the oil industry have been given proper coverage in the newspapers. This study will take a cue from the coverage of NNPC's CSR activities in a bid to assess Nigeria's media coverage of the oil and gas industry.

Objectives of the study
The main objective of this study is to examine newspapers' coverage of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities of a key player in Nigeria's oil and gas industrythe Nigerian National Petroleum Commission (NNPC). Other objectives of this study are to: 1) Examine the volume of coverage of Nigeria's oil industry CSR activities by the selected newspapers.
2) Examine the direction given to the reportage of Nigeria's oil industry CSR activities by the selected national dailies. 3) Find out issues of Nigeria's oil industry CSR activities that received the greatest coverage by the selected Nigerian national dailies.

Research questions
The following research questions have been drawn to pilot the study to a justified conclusion. They bother on the coverage patter of Nigeria's Oil industry. It is as follows: 1) What is the volume of coverage of Nigeria's oil industry CSR activities by the selected newspapers? 2) What direction is given to the reportage of Nigeria's oil industry CSR activities by the selected national dailies? 3) What issues of Nigeria's oil industry CSR activities received the greatest coverage by the selected Nigerian national dailies?

Researchers
in media studies, organizational communication, human communication as well as other facets of mass communication will find the study uniquely useful as its contents might provoke a need for new concepts of academic and professional research. To organizations, firms and other companies looking to embark on the concept of corporate social responsibility, this study will lay good groundwork for them to thrive in their various host communities in which they are domiciled. Finally, this study will serve as a useful tool; a road map to be used by the media in the coverage of CSR related activities in Nigeria and beyond.

Scope of the study
This study is concerned with Newspaper Coverage of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) The scope of this study are four Nigerian newspapers; The Guardian, Punch, Vanguard and The Nation. According to nigerianfinder.com, the selected newspapers are among the first 10 newspapers in Nigeria. Supporting this claim, naij.com revealed that The Guardian newspaper is described as one of the earlier published newspaper publications in Nigeria which attracts international readers. The Punch newspaper is one of Nigeria's most prevalent newspapers because of its presentation and performance style. The Nation newspaper publishes clarifies news while the Vanguard newspaper is one of the most prominent owned newspapers of Nigeria by a private individual. The newspaper is noted for her dedicated nature to national issues by way of coverage which also spans the East, Niger-Delta, the North, and the Southwest. Newspaper editions between January 1, to December 31, 2016 are the study period.

Conceptual review of literature on CSR
There has been so much debate among scholars about Boluwatife and Ayodele 93 the nature and purpose of corporate social responsibility which is today, becoming a fast-rising tool in ensuring effective community/organizational communication or relation. Corporate Social Responsibility also referred to as -CSR‖ is described as functions or activities carried out by organizations in their respective location to ensure a peaceful cohabitation between the organization and members of the public were in its domicile. The media, with relation to this study, the Print media, been serviced with the surveillance function are expected to cover all areas to give verified information to the public.

Corporate social responsibility
Corporate social responsibility is a means of discussing the extent of obligation a business has to its immediate society; a way of proposing policy ideas on how those obligations can be met as well as a tool by which the benefits to a business for meeting those obligations can be identified (Amole et al., 2012). According to Adamolekun (2005), CSR has grown from the mere buzzword of the 1960s and 1970s to its present critical and pervasive reality such that corporate bodies that are not practicing it may be unwittingly toying with their reputation and probably their bottom line. Corporate social responsibility has many names depending on the intent of the user organization and the purpose such as corporate citizenship, corporate social investment, good citizenship, stakeholders' capitalism, enlightened selfinterest, corporate accountability, community relations, sustainable development and many more. However, the aims and objectives of CSR are the attempts by corporate bodies to develop a convivial relationship with their host communities. While the idea of corporate social responsibility is well developed in several other parts of the world such as America, Britain, France and Canada the developing countries are yet to brace up to the new challenges and opportunities it offers. Corporate social responsibility has developed over the years to such levels today that organizations are now required to report it in the same way they audit and report on their financial performances.
In Nigeria, corporate social responsibility is still very much at a teething stage. To a considerable extent, it can be regarded as a fad for big organizations such as banks, manufacturing, oil and gas and telecommunication companies which talk so much about CSR just to create an image of socially responsible entities whereas they are far from being so. Companies that grosses as much as N1 billion after tax in profits annually cannot be said to practice CSR with token scholarships, sales bonanzas, obscure community projects that may not amount to 1% of their profit. Indeed, many of them are involved in charity philanthropy and sponsorship which are regarded as less altruistic and commensurate to the benefits derivable from the communal resources and the dangers the people are exposed to. The reason for this is not farfetched as it could be situated in our history of dictatorial and much-compromised governments, coupled with government-dominated businesses.
Today, things are beginning to change as democracy has given the people back their silenced voices which enable them to demand their rights. The happenings in the industrialised areas of the country as well as the Niger Delta region have shown that corporate Nigeria would from now take CSR very seriously. It is expected that the internationally accepted standards of setting 10% of profit after tax for CRS activities would now begin to apply. There are a few multinational companies that have taken CSR seriously enough to commit a reasonable percentage of their earnings (5 -10%) to corporate giving and other philanthropic activities. Among such companies that are aiming at international CSR performance are Unilever, British Tobacco and Shell Petroleum Development Company and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
What distinguishes Philanthropy (Charity) from Corporate Social Responsibility? Although these two concepts are frequently mistaken for the other, they exhibit fundamental differences in terms of objectives, targets, cost, impact and regularity. Over the decades, the concept of CSR has continued to grow in importance and acceptability. Corporate social responsibility otherwise known as a social investment (Ephraim et al., 2015) is variously called corporate conscience, corporate citizenship, social performance or sustainable responsible business.
Whatever name called, the term corporate social responsibility, is described as a management concept wherein firms, organisations, industries infuse the concerns of the environment and its social aspects into the operation and interactions with their their social and environmental concerns in their business operations and interactions with interested parties. Corporate social responsibility is a company's prompt response to a community's (especially the community playing host to the company) interest which could be social, physical (environmental), cultural or economic (Ephraim et al., 2015).
Adequately executed CSR activities can be highly influential in enhancing access to capital and markets, additional sales and profits, operational cost cutting, improved productivity and quality, efficient human resources base, improved brand image and reputation, enhanced customer loyalty, better decision making and risk management process. Proponents argue that organisations generate more long-term revenue in profits by operating with a perspective; while critics hold that CSR detracts from the economic role of business.

Managerial issues in CSR
Perspectives fluctuate on this issue of corporate social responsibility. This has given rise to diverse thought patterns on the subject matter hence, various ways of thinking exist. The principal way of thinking accepts organizations through their administrators as specialists of investors are by commitment expected to expand the current worth of the firm through an increment in benefit, (Bateman and Snell, 1999). This view is upheld by the way that economic performance is organizations' primary social responsibility along these lines, where organisation do not prioritise investors, as the main commitment, they would not be in the situation to satisfy the general public; particularly as benefit as re-investment factor is needed to speed up financial development.
The contention on the side of corporate social responsibility adds that firms, industries, organisations have a more extensive scope of duties that stretch out past the creation of labor and products at a benefit. These organisations has normal or fake characters who are individuals from the general public are normally and by commitment expected to be really and mindfully engaged with the local area and bigger ecological turn of events and substance programs (Bateman and Snell, 1999).
Adjusting these restricting perspectives concerning corporate social responsibility is the way that organizations should accomplish more than improve creation factors like usefulness, development and benefit as intentional and purposeful endeavors are made at overseeing hazard factors like contamination, assets, squander, innovative perils, risky items and public security (Farrell and Fraedrich, 2016).
In all manner of operation, corporate social responsibility improves corporate notorieties and piece of the pie as it draws in more managers and workers, and makes connections between advertising and exposure, given that associations are seen, frankly, and reasonable when mix-ups are conceded, expressions of remorse are rapidly, truly and truly made and exercises are performed to compensate for botches, (Handy, 2002;Turban and Greening, 1997).
Supporters of corporate social responsibility stress the way that business openings and benefit are created dependent on orderly and vivacious endeavors of organisations at discovering answers for social issues, (O'Toole, 1991). It likewise saves organisations from lawless acts and feelings that can lessen corporate deals development and bookkeeping returns over some time.
Public issues of corporate social responsibility incorporate general wellbeing and security, energy preservation, public strategy, natural issues, association openly, social gifts and local area relations. In Nigeria, given the low degree of subjective education, absence of admittance to data and nonattendance of the act of openbook the board framework; Oko and Agbonifoh (2014), featured the public issues of corporate social responsibility with extraordinary regard for the common habitat and its administration. These public issues, consequently, structure the premise of assessing these organizations as illustrative of firms in the oil business in Nigeria.

Oil communities in the Niger Delta
The Niger Delta area of Nigeria is located in the Southern area of the nation and is lined toward the south by the Atlantic Ocean and the east by Cameroun. The district possesses a surface space of around 112,110 square kilometers. It addresses roughly 12% of, Nigeria's all out surface region and passing by the 2006 populace registration, its populace is put at more than 28 million occupants. The example of settlement in the district is generally controlled by the accessibility of dry land and the idea of the landscape. Low alleviation and extremely helpless waste are the essential components liable for the diminishing number of enormous settlements in the district (Opara, 2008).
The Niger Delta is perhaps the biggest wetland on the planet. It covers a space of around 70 thousand square kilometers and is noted for its sandy beach front edge hindrances, saline mangroves, freshwater, lasting and occasional bog spills backwoods just as a marsh tropical jungle. The entire region is navigated and confused by numerous waterways, streams, streams, channels, and brooks. The waterfront line is pounded over time by tides of the Atlantic Ocean while the terrain is exposed to systems of flood by the different waterways, especially, River Niger. The Niger Delta comprises of nine states which, make up the southern international zone in Nigeria. The area is transcendently possessed by minority ethnic gatherings like Ijaws, Itsekiris, Urhobos, Ibibios, and Edos (NDDC, 2004).
The oil sects in the Niger Delta are those communities that play host to global oil organizations. They are not different from other areas of Nigeria. The bungle of brooks implies that individuals rely upon water for their subsistence. Any oil organization that looks for a comfortable life for individuals of her locale should consider its host networks live on a wetland where cultivating and fishing are the significant wellsprings of job. These oil communities include some part of Delta state, Rivers state, Edo state, Ondo state and a few pieces of Akwa Ibom State and its environs. A portion of these oil networks incorporate Okirika, Ogoni, Bonny, Kegbara-Dere, Erema, Perukele, Elele Alumini, Rumuekpe Port Harcourt, Akabuka, Amah, Ubeta, Ibeno, Opobo, Igbokoda among others.
The deficiency level in the communication of the Niger Delta is higher than what is obtains in Nigeria (Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), 2004). George (2004) points out the fact that the lead community is one that is embodied with the following characteristics: 1) Situated near an oil terminal which is under the careful gazes of furnished security agents.

Boluwatife and Ayodele 95
2) Presents a clear picture of neediness and hopelessness by somewhere around 95% of its occupants.
3) Depends on water transport due to poor or no frontage road whose wharf is incapacitated and risky for water transport. 4) Drinking water is provided by an oil organization for a couple of hours daily. 5) The people group school needs fundamental conveniences as its most apparent gear are a chalkboard and seats. 6) There are numerous youthful and vivacious school leavers and dropouts who are considered unpracticed and unfit for work in the oil organization who thus, are enlisted into the developing aggressiveness in the area that consistently stands up to the security specialists. 7) The normal water and the air are contaminated by the outflow of harmful water brought about by vaporous flare and adjoining oil establishments. 8) Farming which is the customary wellspring of work and the significant wellspring of business for individuals from the local area is made unimaginable due to oil slicks. Many years of political and financial minimization that arose from the disregard of the Niger Delta area by progressive governments, and the underlying wavering of global organizations to address their social obligation and add to social advancement revered neediness in the districts. The approaches of global oil organizations have been a significant wellspring of winning viciousness in the oil networks of Niger-Delta, (World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 2001).
To brace this point, George (2004) states that this area is portrayed by 1) Mass killings emerging from regular conflicts between networks (between local area conflicts) and conflicts among networks and security powers. 2) Hostage-taking the staff and property of oil-creating organizations are regularly focuses of prisoner taking. 3) Large scale burglary of oil and loss of huge measures of income. 4) Sabotage and disturbance of activities of oil partnerships. Enyia (2000) opined that "the neighborhood objectives of intense destitution in the Niger Delta locale of Nigeria have put a few obligations on oil organizations working nearby. The troublesome territory of these networks and the low or complete absence of government presence as far as suitable activities, make the region unstable and individuals fierce, with its specialist Community Relations necessities".

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was set up on April 1, 1977. The Corporation, with added responsibilities to its exploration activities was given forces with functional interests in refining, petrochemicals and product transportation coupled with marketing. NNPC built processing plants between 1978 and 1989 in Warri, Kaduna and Port Harcourt and assumed control over the 35,000-barrel Shell Refinery set up in Port Harcourt in 1965.
In 1988, the NNPC was marketed into 12 vital business units, covering the whole oil industry operations: exploration and production, gas development, refining, distribution, petrochemicals, engineering, and commercial investments. At present, the auxiliary organizations include: Nigeria is positioned as the 10th oil producer, as of November 2006, the 6th biggest oil exporter among OPEC individuals. The country's seven hydrocarbonbearing bowls hold 35 billion barrels demonstrated stores of generally sweet raw petroleum, NOGIO (2006). In any case, the more noteworthy portion of Nigeria's hydrocarbon stores is gas. With 184 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of sweet gas, Nigeria has the seventh biggest gas storage on the planet. Gas is a generally new measurement in the Nigerian oil and gas industry. In spite of the fact that related gas was found with the main oil discovers, gas was for long not discovered to be productive to abuse. Kupolokun (2006) expressed that the gas subsector was projected in 2006 in a matter of seconds to frame a focal board of Nigeria's financial and industrialization technique, just as the key development region for NNPC, and one of the bases for the internationalization of its tasks. The nation additionally runs a joint improvement zone (JDZ) with the island nation of Sao Tome and Principe, bearing about 4b barrels of rough in the Bight of Biafra, yet the Obasanjo government gives NNPC no job in this endeavor aside from giving office space in the company's Abuja bunch central command.
NNPC is a coordinated oil and gas organization, entirely claimed by the Federation. It is a holding organization with 11 completely possessed and two part of the way claimed auxiliaries or corporate specialty units (CBUs). It additionally has a developing number of corporate divisions or corporate procedure units (CSUs). Staff strength has contracted radically since 2003, when it was around 17,000, to around 9,000 in the primary quarter of 2007.
The company's income base gets principally from the returns of an everyday assignment of unrefined, the size of which is audited occasionally. It remained at 44,000 b/d as of March 2006. This incorporates maybe the vague amount of NNPC lifting's, the returns of which NNPC uses to pay petrol benefits charge for PSC project workers and to reimburse credits. Furthermore, 445,000 b/d of unrefined are apportioned for refining in the enterprise's auxiliary treatment facilities available to be purchased in the homegrown market. The enterprise pays a fixed total for this unrefined, regardless of the overall market cost. Incomes from refined items and rough deals address around 90% of NNPC's incomes.
The organization's significant accomplices have been Shell, Chevron, Texaco, Mobil, Agip, Elf, and Total or their archetype organizations. Toward the finish of 2004, these organizations together delivered more than 90% of Nigerian rough. Numerous more modest native organizations do investigation and creation procedure on a sole danger premise. Since the beginning of the Obasanjo organization in 1999, an expanding number of concessions have come under the control of non-Western IOCs; Chinese, Korean, Indian, Indonesian in both upstream and downstream areas, with NNPC, quickly contracting associations with the unpracticed players.

Framing theory
This study utilized framing theory as its theoretical foundation. This theory posits that the media is capable of creating the frame with which media audiences understand issues being reported by introducing news items within a predefined context. Frames can be designed to enhance understanding or are used as cognitive routes to link stories to the bigger picture. Going by Weaver (2007), there is a clear conceptual intersection between the concept of framing and press coverage. Hence, the application of this theoretical concept to this study. The idea of framing is similar to the second level of agenda-setting which explores the relative salience of attributes of issues, as McCombs (2005) and Ghanem (1997) as described in detail. It is against this backdrop, this study examines the press coverage and framing of stories around oil and gas.

METHODOLOGY
This study utilizes content analysis as the research design for this study. Ate (2013) stated that content analysis examines the text, graphics and images in selected newspapers in elements like news-stories, opinions, letters-to-the-editor, editorials and cartoons‖. This study emphasized front and back pages, as well as inside pages of the four, selected Nigerian dailies intending to examine NNPC CSR related stories and other related CSR stories that do not reflect NNPC.
The essence of such devout is to examine issues on CSR that received prominence and to ascertain the extent of coverage of CSR related activities by the papers under study.
Analysis of direction of manifest which consists of editorial matters (news stories, editorials, opinion, articles, feature articles, letter-to-the-editor, pictures and cartoons); position or placement of story items, depth/length of the story and major key players/element in the news was done quantitatively while textual analysis of the items which deals with language, style and bias was done quantitatively.

Population of study
The study population is the 2016 edition of The Guardian, Punch, Vanguard and The Nation newspapers. Therefore, the population for this study is exemplified in the Table 1. The total population for this study was 1, 460 editions of the selected Nigerian dailies (Table 1).

Sample size
The monthly sample of the selected newspaper was arrived at through the content sampling technique of Stempel (1952) cited by Ate (2013). Stempel (1952) conducted content sampling on separate samples of 6, 12, 18, 24 and 48 issues of a newspaper and discovered that there was no significant difference in terms of having compared the average content of each sample. Through the above guideline, this study sampled the entire editions of the selected newspapers totaling 1460 editions.

Sampling technique
Four privately-owned Nigerian national dailies, The Guardian, Punch, Vanguard and The Nation newspapers were sampled for this study purposively. The choice of these newspapers was predicated on the fact that they circulate in the country and cover most states of the federation. This simply means that the total sample population for the study is the 1,460 editions of the selected newspapers.
The multi-stage sampling procedure was used in determining the sample size for content analysis for this study. According to Wimmer and Dominick (2011) in Ate (2013), most content analysis in mass media involves multi-stage sampling‖.
The first stage involves the sampling of newspapers. The Guardian, Punch, Vanguard and The Nation newspapers were randomly selected. The second stage of the multi-stage sampling procedure involved the selection of the specific issues to be used in the content analysis. Three hundred and sixty-five (365) editions of The Guardian were selected for the year 2016; the same approach was applied to the other three (3) papers; Punch, Vanguard and the Nation newspapers. Therefore, the total number of editions selected for the analysis is 1, 460.
In selecting the dates of the edition for the samples, the purposive sampling technique was adopted using the criterion of CSR-rich editions and ensuring that all the days of the week are adequately represented.
In answering research 1: What is the volume of coverage of Nigeria's oil industry CSR activities by the selected newspapers? This Table was used. Table 2 shows that there is a significant difference in the volume of coverage by Newspapers as the Chisquare calculated is significant at the 0.05 level. Most issues fall within the category of long (55.6%). 59.0% of the issues on the economy are long. 69.6% of crime  coverage is long, 71.4% of corporate social responsibility is long while 28.6% of coverage of organizational structure is long. The organizational structure has a largely medium space (71.4%).
In answering research 2: What direction is given to the reportage of Nigeria's oil industry CSR activities by the selected national dailies?
Direction differs by issues as the chi-square calculated is significant at the 0.05 level. Most reports on the economy are neutral (62.3%), while a favourable report on the economy constitutes 32.8%. 78.3% of the coverage on Crime is unfavourable as 21.7% is neutral. 64.3% of reports on Corporate social responsibility is neutral, 28.6% is favourable and only one report is unfavourable. 57.1% of coverage on organizational structure is neutral (Table 3).
In answering research 3: What issues of Nigeria's oil industry CSR activities received the greatest coverage by the selected Nigerian national dailies?
There is no significant difference in the volume of coverage of Nigeria's oil industry CSR activities by Newspaper as the chi-square calculated is not significant at the 0.05 level. From the responses in the table above, the largest share of issue coverage goes to reports or coverage of NNPC role in the economy (48.4%) and the organizational structure accounts for 22.2%. This is followed by Crime (18.3%). CSR activities account for 11.1% of coverage (Table 4). The CSR activities of the NNPC are the least covered of the activities of the organization.

Conclusion
This research work examined how the selected newspaper covered NNPC's CSR activities in Nigeria. It is a content analysis of four three privately-owned newspapers, The Punch, The Nation, Vanguard and the Guardian in the coverage of NNPC's CSR activities in Nigeria and it yielded the following conclusions that most stories about NNPC were not adequately presented as there were more stories about the organizational activities of NNPC by the four selected newspapers.
The findings in this study support the observations that, activities on corporate social responsibility were not adequately covered. The media need to re-orient and reposition themselves. The frame and set agenda for public discussion. It was observed that reports on corporate social responsibility were not adequately reported as most issues reported in the newspapers. The reports indicate the central position of the NNPC to the Nigerian economy, ever since the discovery and exploitation of oil, as well as the establishment of the NNPC, the organization has played a vital role in the upstream and the downstream sectors.
Since results presented in this study indicated that newspapers' reportage on NNPC's CSR activities are low and gave high prominence to news on the economic activity and moderate in-depth report of news stories on other issues, it would be pertinent to conclude that newspaper coverage of corporate social responsibility in the country has been impressively low, generally. This is because, on its part, newspapers have not succeeded in providing the people with information that bother on CSR. Findings from this study indicate that news stories on CSR activities of NNPC were at 11.1%, a considerably low reportage.
Since CSR benefits companies through improved image and reputation, improved trust and understanding, larger and more prominent profile, better market position, more business, increased attractiveness to potential recruits, cost savings and increased efficiency, risk management, benefits company culture; every corporate organization should set up an effective and efficient unit to ensure that CSR programs portray economic responsibility, legal responsibility, ethical responsibility, philanthropic responsibility, charity principle, stewardship principle, and environmental friendliness to the community. This act or acts should be given proper reportage in the media.

CONFLICTS OF INTERESTS
The authors have not declared any conflicts of interests.