This work examines how effective democratic participant media theory (DPMT) is in the Nigerian media context, in terms of the tenets upheld, tenets not upheld as well as tenets marked with ambiguities. Data from the analysis of the editorials of three national newspapers –The Nation, The Sun and Vanguard - show that only The Sun - has editorials published daily, which supports the theory’s tenet of the citizen’s need for content. Political issues emerge fifth among six other sub-themes in their coverage and the citizen’s determination of the need for media content turns out to be the purview of the journalists who are centrally controlled.