Abstract:
On June 22, 2019 at about 11:00 pm, the Amhara Regional State president, the State’s Attorny
General and the President’s public relations advisor assassinated in Bahir Dar in attack called by
the federal government a coup attempt. After hours a go the chief of staff of the Ethiopian army,
Gen Seare Mekonnen and his veteran friend (General Gezaie Abera) assassinated in Addis
Ababa too. The aim of this study was to explore how the Amhara TV reported these June 22
attacks. The research exhostively go through the contents covered during the crisis period and
analysed 30 news coverage about the attack using content analysis as a method of invsigation.
In-depth interview of journalists (six) who were participated in data gathering, reporting, editing
and commanding the production and broadcasting process also served as data gathering tool.
Agenda setting and framing theories served as pillars of analysis. The elements of the news
stories covered by Amhara Television concerning the June 22 attacks in Ethiopia, the
ideological stand points and potential biases on the news stories, how government officials and
military chiefs represented in the news stories, whose agenda outweighed by the news contents
from the media and others?. Thematic analysis of data gathered revealed that the way agendas set
were difrent in the public and in the media. Lack of agenda setting practice in times of crisis in
the media paved the way for officials to take control of it in addition to ownership influence.