The narrow range of topics covered by newspapers, television and radio, is in some ways simply a reflection of the priorities that Swaziland’s government has.
The research called His Master’s Voice: Political Reporting in Swaziland 2007, published by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Swaziland chapter, examined media output over five weeks in 2007.
It examined which topics were covered in political reporting in the media, identifying the type of political events, issues and debates that were reported, and how often.
The report found ‘that there was little diversity in political reporting. Political reporting was clearly dominated by just four issues: labour/workers rights, the justice system, development and corruption. Other topics such as HIV AIDS and poverty are barely reported on as political issues or in relation to government policies and activities.’
The most common political story was about labour/workers’ rights issues (14 percent of all political stories). Within this topic there were a variety of stories, including workplace disputes involving government, dealings between government and unions, efforts to form a police union, civil servants and teachers demanding better pay and conditions, a nurses’ strike, activities and initiatives of the Department of Employment and court cases on labour issues pitting government against workers. No one particular labour story dominated.
This led the report’s author, Mary Ellen Rogers, to conclude, ‘This diversity of political stories on labour-related issues demonstrates that workers’ rights across the board was the dominant political story.’
Political stories about the justice system were mainly about court rulings on casesinvolving government, in particular the Mzikayise dispute over burial rights of a former chief. Other justice system stories were about constitutional issues, legislation, bills, High Court appointments and the Judicial Services Commission.
Development stories were about development projects and policies that involve government. The monitoring revealed that development was one of the government's policy areas most commonly reported on.
The stories about corruption included coverage of a drug procurement scandal where three MPs were accused of abusing their office, an E50m (more than 4 million US dollars) corruption case involving key government figures, government fraud and conflict of interest stories, in particular, a story a story about conflict of interest at the parastatal, Swaziland Electricity Company (SEC).
These four topics - labour/workers’ rights, justice system, development and corruption - occupied almost 50 percent of the political coverage during the monitoring period.
On the other hand, government spending, democracy, HIV/AIDS and poverty together accounted for just nine percent of all political stories.
The report also found that political reporting was overwhelmingly dominated by stories ‘of national significance’, that is stories that had a national focus – these accounted for 86 percent of all political stories.
The report noted that the representation of regional political stories was ‘extremely low.’ Hhohho was ‘clearly the favoured region’. Hhohho is home to Swaziland’s capital city Mbabane and is also the region where all the kingdom’s media houses are based.
The report concluded, ‘The media’s concentration in Hhohho limits its potential to report equitably on all regions.
‘Lubombo, Shiselweni and Manzini barely featured in political reporting.’
I have the full report as a PDF file. If you want a copy, email me here swazimedia@yahoo.com
See also
SWAZI POLITICAL REPORTING IS POOR
The stories about corruption included coverage of a drug procurement scandal where three MPs were accused of abusing their office, an E50m (more than 4 million US dollars) corruption case involving key government figures, government fraud and conflict of interest stories, in particular, a story a story about conflict of interest at the parastatal, Swaziland Electricity Company (SEC).
These four topics - labour/workers’ rights, justice system, development and corruption - occupied almost 50 percent of the political coverage during the monitoring period.
On the other hand, government spending, democracy, HIV/AIDS and poverty together accounted for just nine percent of all political stories.
The report also found that political reporting was overwhelmingly dominated by stories ‘of national significance’, that is stories that had a national focus – these accounted for 86 percent of all political stories.
The report noted that the representation of regional political stories was ‘extremely low.’ Hhohho was ‘clearly the favoured region’. Hhohho is home to Swaziland’s capital city Mbabane and is also the region where all the kingdom’s media houses are based.
The report concluded, ‘The media’s concentration in Hhohho limits its potential to report equitably on all regions.
‘Lubombo, Shiselweni and Manzini barely featured in political reporting.’
I have the full report as a PDF file. If you want a copy, email me here swazimedia@yahoo.com
See also
SWAZI POLITICAL REPORTING IS POOR
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