SWAZI P.M. IS CLOSE TO THE MEDIA

Swaziland’s Prime Minister has praised the Swazi media for the support they have given him and his government over the past five years.

Themba Dlamini was speaking at the final Swaziland’s editor’s forum breakfast meeting before the forthcoming elections.

Dlamini said past meetings had given people the opportunity to understand government policies and programmes.

He said there was value in the ‘constant interaction’ between government and media that these monthly meetings represented.

I am not surprised that the Prime Minister is pleased with the media’s behaviour because, put simply, they haven’t really given him a hard time at all.

The forum is billed as an opportunity for the media to question the Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues on matters of interest to the nation, but in his speech the PM was very open about the fact that he would only answer the questions that he wanted to.

I personally don’t see that as being much of an open dialogue. A real interaction would only take place when the Prime Minister and senior politicians were forced to answer questions they did NOT want to answer.

The breakfast meetings take place every month and usually get extensive coverage in the media. This month for example the Swazi Observer (4 July 2008) devoted one page and the Times of Swaziland, two pages to the meeting. Usually the reports are summaries of what the PM said. There is no attempt to get alterative voices in the stories.

This is entirely typical of the Swazi media and must be why the Prime Minister thinks the meetings are so valuable: he gets to put his own point of view across.

The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Swaziland chapter in its report His Master’s Voice: Political Reporting in Swaziland 2007 showed how this happens in practice.

The report, written by Mary Ellen Rogers, gives an example of a report in the Times of Swaziland (15 November 2007). The story headlined PM Doubts Ngozo was shot at 35cm radius was about the PM’s defence of the police service against allegations that officers fatally shot an unarmed suspect at close range.

The only source in the story was the Prime Minister himself.

Rogers comments,

‘The report just provided a summary of the PM’s statements. As such, the information was extremely limited. There was no context to explain the shooting and critically no information about what was contained in the post-mortem report that the PM so readily discredits.

‘There was no information to counter or verify the PM’s claims. The PM speaks of investigations that are complete, but we are not told any detail about the investigations such as who conducted them and under what circumstances.

‘There is confusing reference to a previous coroner but no information on when the current coroner will hear this case and what the likely consequences would be for the officers involved.’

Personally, I can see why the PM is pleased with the Swazi media. The media have such a lack of curiosity that the PM can get away with anything.

To emphasise the point look at my post yesterday (5 July 2008) about the PM praising the state of the Swazi economy.


To see the full text of the Prime Minister’s speech to the Editors’ Forum, click here

See also
P.M. PRAISES SWAZI MEDIA