HOW THE MEDIA COVERED THE 2016 ZAMBIA

GENERAL ELECTION PRE-CAMPAIGN PERIOD FULL REPORT BY Solomon Atibuni

EXEECUTIVE SUMMARY

Introduction

As Zambia approaches the August general election to appoint the next government and other elective positions for the next five (5) years, this study was commissioned by Media Institute of Southern Africa in collaboration with the Media Liaison Committee and technical support from BBC Media Action to continuously monitor the media during the 2016 general election period.

Context of the Study

Free, independent and professional media is one of the most important pillars in a democracy. It can play a key role in providing balanced, accurate and fair information to voters on contesting candidates and parties, and by holding leaders (both current and prospective leaders) to account on their policies, practices and manifestoes. MISA Zambia, a membership based NGO that advocates for media rights and freedom and the Media Liaison Committee undertook this research project so as to provide an accurate picture of how Zambia media (public, private and community) cover the elections both during the pre-campaign, campaign and post campaign periods.

Objectives

The objectives of this study are as follows:

I. To establish the key themes covered by the selected media outlets during the 2016 election coverage

II. To assess how balanced is the election coverage on the selected media outlets III. To establish the editorial quality of the 2016 election coverage of the selected media outlets

Methodology

The election monitoring project uses a quantitative methodology, the focus of which is to count the number of times selected media outlets report election-related stories within a specific period of time. Attention was paid to understanding whether such contents were issue-based, balanced, and demonstrated editorial qualities. The selection of media outlets had a national scope. The sample for the study was based on the most listened, read and watched media outlets in Zambia. The sampling frame for this research was based on diverse media outlets that included online, print, television and radio considered with wide readers, and listeners.

Findings

Overall, electoral process-related issues, election-related violence and election campaigns dominate the coverage by public media outlets in the pre-election period. Very limited coverage was given to information about the contesting parties’ manifestos and policies. The focus has thus been on the trappings of the electoral process, but not the substance behind the parties. This means that public media outlets do not provide Zambians with sufficient access to the information they need to be able to make an informed choice as to who and which party to vote for to determine the future of Zambia.

The findings show that among the privately owned media outlets, the dominant election-related topic was electoral process, followed by judiciary and legal affairs, election campaigns, election malpractice, conflict resolution, defection from one party to another, election-related violence and personal attacks on candidates. However, crucial issues like employment, poverty alleviation, and infrastructure were least covered. In community media outlets, the findings indicate that, apart from Radio Kabangabanga, which widely covered poverty alleviation, all the three community media outlets had covered processes and events. Overall, the data indicates that the community media focused more on issues to do with electoral processes and campaigns rather than those that would guide the voters on voting choices as well as social-economic issues. Conclusions

1. Key topics: Election stories predominantly cover processes, personalities, and events and neither deal with policy nor developmental issues nor party manifestos. The topics are not based on issues.

2. Balance of coverage: The Patriotic Front (PF) party had the majority of the coverage with almost twice as many stories as United Platform for National Development party. PF was given prominence across the majority of media houses.

3. Editorial quality: More than 60% of all election stories were single sourced, and therefore biased and unfair and not balanced.

Recommendations

1. There is a need to increase the coverage of topics relevant to citizens’ choices of who and which party to vote for. Topics such as the eradication of poverty, education, health, agriculture, and employment would merit being addressed in relation to each party’s manifesto.

2. Balance the coverage of different political parties; this means there is a need to increase the present amount of coverage of opposition and smaller opposition parties.

3. Increase and balance the range of sources and viewpoints expressed in a story.