Reporting It Right: An Assessment of Nigerian Television Authority and Silverbird Television's Reportage of the Economic Recession Crisis in Nigeria NWAGBARA, Grace U., Ph.D. & EZEGWU, Daniel Toochukwu Department of Communication Arts, University of Uyo, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria Abstract The purpose of this study was to assess Silverbird television and Nigeria Television Authority (NTA)'s reportage of the economic recession crisis in Nigeria. It specifically sought to ascertain the formats adopted by the stations in reporting the economic recession situation in Nigeria, to find out if the two television stations had displayed a high level of accuracy, truthfulness and fairness and to ascertain which of the two stations, by its reportage has helped to provide Nigerians with possible solutions to the economic recession. The content analysis method was adopted as the research design for the study. The purposive sampling method was used to select the relevant media content analysed. The findings indicate that both Silverbird Television and NTA used straightforward news, discussions/phone-in programmes, documentaries and commercials to report the economic recession crisis. Further findings indicate that Silverbird displayed a high level of accuracy, truthfulness and fairness in reporting the economic recession more than NTA, which served as a mere “government megaphone” reporting government's position on the matter. It is recommended that NTA should endeavour to give accurate account of events, including the economic recession crisis in order to inform the public better and to attract positive audience perception of the station. Keywords: Economic recession, Reportage, Accuracy, Fairness, Crisis, Silverbird, NTA. Introduction Recession has become a major topic of discussion for Nigerians within and beyond the country's borders. Economic recession can be said to be a downturn in the economy. It could also mean a decline in the Gross Domestic Product for two months or more in the consecutive quarters (Agri, Mailafia and Umejiaku, 2017). Recession is often characterised by symptoms such as rising prices of goods and services, inability of government to meet its financial obligations, exchange rate fluctuations and poor performance of other macroeconomic variables which define the state of the economy within a given period of time. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Friday, July 1, UNIUYO Journal of Humanities (UUJH) Vol. 22, N0. 1, May 2018 185