Abstract

Public service is one of the cardinal five values that defined professional journalism (see Deuze, 2005). Although the proportion of public service content in non-commercial media is greater than in commercial media, there is a general awareness within the media organisations about the need to include public service content in order to fulfil their social responsibility as watchdogs. However, the inability of the mainstream media to balance the need to address mass and minority audiences has spurred the proliferation of alternative and diasporic media in the past two decades. But while there is a wealth of literature on the provision of public service content by the mainstream media (Burns & Brugger, Eds, 2012), we have little understanding of its provision by the diasporic media despite the role they play in providing a legitimate “voice to the voiceless” (Khanfar, 2007 cited in Powers, 2012). Hence, this study examines whether the Nigerian Watch, a monthly newspaper based in Edgware, London, provides a public service through an in-depth interview with the editor; and through a framing analysis of its content to discover the frame packages related to public service. The analysis reveals that almost 60 percent of the newspaper’s content is devoted to public service. This has implication for the way we perceive the role of the diasporic media, especially in bridging the divide between the mainstream and diaspora audiences.