As the fourth estate of the realm, the press helps a nation to further its interest, objectives and goals. Since the dawn of information revolution, the press have been an important element in opinion making/ building, creating heroes and villains, and creating monsters and enemies. This article, relying on quantitative and qualitative framing analyses, examines the role of the press in the Boko Haram insurgency looking at Leadership and Vanguard newspapers headlines and first lead of each story from January 2015 to June 2015. The paper found that the newspapers' reports on the war against the Boko Haram insurgency were in two categories. Leadership for instance, reported the Boko Haram insurgency in favour of the Military by glorifying them which may have boosted public confidence in the military's capability to end the insurgency. Similarly, Vanguard gave little attention to the insurgents and most of its report seems to be in favour of the military. It is recommended that the media should provide the clearest, factual, and balanced reports right from headline to the full report as much as possible to prevent the misinterpretation of terrorism-related incidents by the public and government officials who can possibly make sub-optimal decisions regarding countering moves.

Elections is sine-qua-non to democracy. The coverage of elections has been a major sensitive part of journalism. Journalists are expected to avoid sentiments and be as objective as possible in reporting elections. The relationship between politics and the media is therefore an inextricable one. Thus, the media go through 'an arduous task' to give effective coverage as they did in the October 20, 2012 Ondo Gubernatorial election which saw the emergence of Dr. Rahman Olusegun Mimiko of Labour Party (LP) as winner of the poll. This makes him to be the first Governor of Ondo State to be returned through the ballot box. Hence, this study finds out how Nigerian newspapers reported the October 20, 2012 Ondo Gubernatorial election. The study also views the reportage by some selected newspapers in the light of ownership interest and political affiliation as it affects their objectivity and editorial independence. The study content analysed 15days (30 editions) – a week before the election, the Election Day and a week after the election (Sunday, June 14, 2014- Sunday, June 28, 2014) of The Nation and the Nigeria Compass Newspapers. The newspapers were carefully chosen based on their ownership structure and political affiliation. Agenda Setting and Social Responsibility theories of mass communication formed the theoretical framework. Findings from the study shows The Nation and Nigeria Compass were sensational in their reports, politics of calumny and hate were held supreme during the period under review, thus indicating that owners/proprietors influence editorial contents, thus tampering with the editorial independence and objectivity in the newsroom.

The struggle for independence in the Gold Coast was not entirely characterized by protest movements. For a fact, civil deliberation played a major feature. While the struggle for freedom through civil deliberation between the colonized and the colonizer seems unlikely, it was partly the case in Gold Coast. Kwame Nkrumah's invention in the Gold Coast Colonial Assembly serves as a key rhetorical exemplar of a civil deliberation towards the freedom of the oppressed. The paper therefore examines the rhetorical strategies in Nkrumah's Motion for Independence which laid a key deliberative foundation for the struggle for independence in the Gold Coast. This has implications for deliberative rhetorical practice in Africa as the continent struggles for political emancipation.