INCREASE IN SUPPORT FOR FREE PRESS

Nearly six in ten people surveyed in Swaziland said they supported the need for freedom of the media.

The number supporting freedom had increased by 6 percent since 2013.

The figures were contained in a report from Afrobarometer released on Tuesday (3 May 2016) to coincide with World Press Freedom Day.

People were asked whether the media should have the right to publish any views and ideas without government control. A total of 57 percent of people of people asked agreed or very strongly agreed with the statement. This placed Swaziland 13^th out of 36 African countries surveyed.

Media in Swaziland, where King Mswati III rules as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, is heavily censored. The Swazi Government controls the main television channel and all radio that broadcasts news and information. One of the kingdom’s two daily newspapers is in effect owned by the King.

A separate report from Freedom House, also released on World Freedom Day, concluded that media in Swaziland are ‘not free’.

Afrobarometer, which produces reports by social scientists working together across Africa, concluded that support for free media in Swaziland had increased by 6 percent since it last surveyed opinion in 2011 – 2013.

The report suggested that 64 percent of Swazis interviewed believed the media should continually investigate and report on government mistakes and corruption. This placed Swaziland 27^th out of the 36 African countries surveyed.

In its report, Afrobarometer said, ‘Investigating government mistakes and corruption is seen as a critical role for the media.’ It asked people in Swaziland how effective were the news media in the kingdom in revealing government mistakes and corruption. A total of 55 percent of people questioned said it was ‘somewhat / very effective’. 

A further 34 percent said it was ’not at all / not very effective’. A total of 11 percent responded, ‘don’t know’. This placed Swaziland 22^nd out of 36 African countries for ‘media effectiveness’.

Afrobarometer suggested that changes in the ‘perceptions of media effectiveness’ had improved in Swaziland since the last survey in 2011 – 2013. It reported there had been a 6 percent increase in perception.

When asked whether news media abused its freedom ‘by saying things it knows are not true’, 33 percent of people surveyed in Swaziland said ‘often or always’. This placed Swaziland 16^th out of 36 African countries.

Afrobarometer reported that 4 percent more people surveyed in Swaziland thought the media abused its freedom compared to the survey undertaken in 2011 – 2013.

See also

JOURNALISTS JAILED TO DETER OTHERS
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2014/07/journalists-jailed-to-deter-others.html

CALL TO END SWAZI MEDIA CENSORSHIP

http://swazimedia.blogspot.co.za/2015/09/call-to-end-swazi-media-censorship.html

 

GOVT HAS TOTAL CONTROL OF TV NEWS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2015/06/govt-has-total-control-of-tv-news.html

TWO WEEKS TO SAVE SWAZI TV

Swazi TV news is so bad that the Minister of Public Service and Information has been given two weeks to make it better.

The move makes a timely reminder that media in Swaziland is not free.

Swazi TV is the government controlled television channel in Swaziland. There are only two TV stations in the kingdom, the other Channel Swazi (Channel S) is ‘independent’ of government control but was set up with the stated aim of broadcasting positive material about Swaziland’s autonomous monarch, King Mswati III.

The news of Swazi TV’s lack of expertise was published yesterday (27 November 2007) in the Swazi Observer, a newspaper owned by a company that is effectively owned by the king.

The Observer reported that the Ministry of Public Service and Information portfolio committee (a committee that oversees the workings of the ministry) gave the minister S’gayoyo Magongo two weeks to put matters right.

It is true that Swazi TV is in a mess. A few days ago it was revealed that Vukani Maziya, the chief executive of Swazi TV, had to wait about four months for his contract to be renewed. It was said that this was due to an administrative problem, rather than concerns about his ability in the job.

Swazi TV has been complaining for many years that it does not have enough money to properly run a television station. It relies heavily on cheap programming from overseas, especially the United States.

I have myself written about the poor quality of Swazi TV news. If you watch the news bulletins you see that the news is dominated by ‘official’ voices. These are representatives of the monarchy, of government or of non-government organizations.

Swazi television news excludes the vast majority of people in the country from its news bulletins and it rarely includes stories about ordinary people. Generally, ordinary people are not featured unless they have been victims of misfortune.

The majority of the reports that are broadcast centre on the main business town of Manzini and the kingdom’s capital city Mbabane and the 40-km ‘corridor’ that connects these two.

Swazi journalists do not perform their vital democratic role, which is to examine what government is and is not doing and to provide the public with information, comment, analysis, criticism and alternative views. Instead, news reports are presented at face value and reporters are not allowed to ask questions that require people in positions of power to justify their statements or actions.

If the Minister really wants to improve the quality of Swazi TV news, he and his government should set it free. It will never get better while it is forced to report only what the government allows it to. Instead, let professional journalists, people with real expertise and qualifications, run the station.



See also

TV NEWS IGNORES THE PEOPLE
BROADCASTING FOR THE PUBLIC

RADIO NEWS NOT FOR THE PEOPLE

Radio Swaziland news fails as a medium for news and information and instead serves only the interests of the Swazi Royal Family and the king’s government.

These are the main conclusions from a survey of Radio Swaziland English Service evening news bulletins.

The bulletins which run for 10 minutes in the evenings are broadcast at 6pm and repeated word for word at 7pm.

To research what news items the bulletins contained I did a survey of the 6pm bulletin for five days (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) spread over a two week period in November 2007.

The bulletins are unusual in radio terms because they do not contain any news reporting as such. Instead a single news reader announces the news from a script. Often the reader announces in flat tones which makes even the most potentially interesting report sound like a death notice. Nowhere in the bulletins are there any ‘on-the-spot’ reports from journalists at the scene where news happened.

All this makes listening to Radio Swaziland News a very uncomfortable and boring experience.

The news items covered are not very interesting either.

In my survey I counted the first six items in the news bulletin, making a total of 30 from across the five days. Of these 30 only three reports in the entire period were not about the Royal Family or government ministries.

As an example, here is the running order for the news on Thursday 8 November 2007. The bulletin started with a report from the Ministry of Enterprise and Employment that an overseas’ company may set up a factory in Swaziland to manufacture bags. This was followed by reports from the Ministry of Housing, the Ministry for Tourism, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Public Services and the Ministry of Public Works.

In all the above cases the ‘news’ report was mostly an announcement about something positive that the ministry was doing.

It is said by media observers in Swaziland that all stations under the control of Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Service (SBIS), which includes Radio Swaziland English Service, have a definite hierarchy that must be followed when it comes to presenting the news. It runs something like this: stories about the King always lead, followed by the Prime Minister, Cabinet and then individual ministers and MPs.

I don’t know if this hierarch officially exists, that is that it is written down as a definite policy, but the evidence of my survey suggests that it is true. During the period I surveyed on two days there were stories about the Royal Family and both times they were the first story read out. This was even when one of the reports only involved the King in a minor way (it was about a fund he had founded making a donation to build a health clinic).

Radio Swaziland is part of the Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Service which is a government department. By its own account SBIS is ‘responsible for disseminating news and information aimed at educating, informing and entertaining the Swazi nation effectively and impartially for the purposes of development and social welfare through radio broadcasts and publications.’

It goes on to say, ‘The overall role of the SBIS is to assist the Government of Swaziland meet her priorities under the National Development Strategy (NDS), and in particular towards the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic, poverty alleviation and employment generation.’

My survey suggests that Radio Swaziland News fails to entertain (it really is so boring that I only listen to it when I am researching it). It is informative only in the narrow sense that it contains information from government departments but it is difficult to see how any listener could make any use of the information that the bulletins contain.

The news is not impartial since the only point of view it contains comes from the Royal Family or the King’s government.

There has been a lot of discussion in Swaziland this year about transforming SBIS into a public service broadcaster.

Public service broadcasting aims to inform, educate and entertain in a way in which the commercial or state sector left unregulated would not do. Generally, it is understood that public service broadcasters air a wide range of programmes in a variety of tastes and interests. They speak to everyone as a citizen and everyone has an opportunity to access the airways and participate in public life.

The World Radio and Television Council put it well when it said that public service broadcasting stations help people to develop knowledge, broaden horizons and enable people to better understand themselves by better understanding the world and others.

On the evidence of my survey, Radio Swaziland is nowhere close to meeting these criteria.

See also
RADIO SWAZILAND ENGLISH NEWS
BROADCASTING FOR THE PUBLIC

RADIO SWAZILAND ENGLISH NEWS

Radio Swaziland needs to work harder to meet its own aim to inform the Swazi nation effectively and impartially for the purposes of development and social welfare.

That is one of the conclusions of a survey into the news bulletins on the English service of Radio Swaziland.

Radio Swaziland is part of the Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Service which is a government department. By its own account SBIS is ‘responsible for disseminating news and information aimed at educating, informing and entertaining the Swazi nation effectively and impartially for the purposes of development and social welfare through radio broadcasts and publications.’

It goes on to say, ‘The overall role of the SBIS is to assist the Government of Swaziland meet her priorities under the National Development Strategy (NDS), and in particular towards the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic, poverty alleviation and employment generation.’

To test whether the radio station was living up to its own mission, I did a survey of the English Service of Radio Swaziland for the week Monday to Friday starting on Monday 29 October 2007. I took the 6 am bulleting (which is repeated word for word at 7 am) and I counted the first six items of the bulletin. Usually there are no more than six items in the entire bulletin which lasts for 10 minutes.

There is only one voice heard on Radio Swaziland news – that of the news reader. No journalists report from the scene of an event and there are no voices of people who have made the news.

The reading ability of the news readers is generally poor. They have difficulty reading the English language aloud and it is very common for them to take two or three attempts at pronouncing some words.

In my survey there were 30 reports in total. Of these only nine were about Swaziland. On three days (Monday, Tuesday and Thursday) there was only one news report each day from Swaziland.

The most popular source of news was from South Africa (13 items). Otherwise, during the week there was one report from each of the following countries: Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Sudan, Spain, Russia and Taiwan. Two news reports had no obvious national source.

Of the nine reports from Swaziland, six were speeches or statements from government ministers (including the prime minister), one was about the Swazi Royal Family and two were about private businesses.

Of the six statements from ministers only two concerned the workings of government (a report of impending legislation against sexual abuse of women and children and a report on road reconstruction).

On the evidence of this week’s listening Radio Swaziland cannot be said to be fulfilling its role to ‘responsible for disseminating news and information aimed at educating, informing and entertaining the Swazi nation effectively and impartially for the purposes of development and social welfare through radio broadcasts and publications.’

This is because only nine of the 30 reports were about Swaziland and on three days only one report came from the kingdom. These figures alone show that the radio station doesn’t even place Swaziland at the top of its news agenda (there are more reports from neighbouring South Africa).

When it does report on Swaziland it only reports the ‘official’ voices of government, royalty or business. This may be Radio Swaziland’s response to its remit of ‘disseminating news and information’, but if it is it is a very one-sided interpretation.

Nowhere in any bulletin did we hear the voices of ordinary people. Nor, is there any opposition views aired to the government position. This is dangerously close to government propaganda rather than ‘impartial’ news and information.

SBIS needs to reflect carefully about its mission and look at ways that its service can improve and truly offer news that helps development and social welfare.

(Radio Swaziland also airs news bulletins in the evening. I’ll write about those another time.)

WHAT’S IN THE SWAZILAND PAPERS?

If you had to describe Swaziland’s newspapers to someone who had never seen them before, what would you say?

What are the main characteristics of the two daily and three weekend newspapers?

The most obvious thing to say is that they all have big headlines on top of (mostly) short reports. When you read the reports, you notice they often lack detail and avoid complicated explanation.

There are also lots of pictures and graphics (many of them in colour). Sometimes it isn’t really true to say that you are ‘reading’ the newspaper. Some days there can be more than 60 pictures in any one edition of the Times of Swaziland or the Swazi Observer. Because of the large number of pictures, it is probably more accurate to say you’re ‘looking at’ the paper.

Some days there is no news as such on the front page of the Swazi papers. Instead, you get headlines about stories that are contained inside the newspaper. There is always a big picture on the front page and sometimes a ‘taster’ for a competition that’s inside the newspaper.

The whole idea of the front page is to get people to notice the paper, pick it up and buy it. The front page is not really about journalism: it’s an advert for the paper itself.

If you can’t resist temptation and buy one of the newspapers what do find inside?

To find out more detail about the contents of the Observer and the Times, I did a survey of all editions in the month of May 2005 (twenty editions of each newspaper).

To start with the newspapers aren’t all about news. The number of pages per issue of the Times and Observer run from 36 to 48 and in the survey period the total number of pages in the Observer was 772 of which 144 were full pages of advertising (19 percent of total space), leaving 628 editorial pages to count. In the Times there were 816 pages in total of which 181 were full pages of advertising (22 percent of total space), leaving 635 editorial pages to count.

When you’ve got past the adverts you find that there is more ‘soft’ news reports rather than ‘hard’ news. They concentrate on sport, leisure, celebrity, entertainment and encouraging consumption.

There is relatively little ‘hard’ news, such as politics, business and information of significance to readers.

I found that there are more similarities than differences between the editorial content of the Observer and the Times.

Both newspapers place high importance on ‘soft’ or ‘non-serious’ material. For example, the combined ‘sport’ and ‘entertainment and leisure’ categories (the most non-serious material in the newspapers) equal 44 percent of total space in the Observer and 40 percent in the Times.

The Observer has up to ten pages of sport per day (the Times has up to seven pages) and five pages of entertainments (the Times generally has six pages). By contrast serious comment and analysis averages only one and a half pages per day (5 percent) in the Observer and one page per day (2 percent) in the Times.

The entertainments and sport rely heavily on news from overseas (news of European soccer is particularly prevalent in both papers). ‘Entertainment’ editorial includes news of overseas entertainments and in many cases it is not clear what the relevance the editorial has to Swazis as, for example, many of the movies and television shows that are featured will not be shown in Swaziland since the country has no cinemas and the TV shows do not air locally, not even on satellite.

Neither newspaper has reporters based outside of Swaziland so their ‘World’ news (which amounts to one or two pages per day for both newspapers) is supplied by international news agencies and in many cases the same news reports appear word for word in both newspapers (the same is true of world sport). In the Observer there is a greater concentration on news from other African countries and on some days an entire page is devoted solely to editorial from the continent.

Both newspapers were interested in the same kinds of stories, but the Observer gave greater prominence to the Monarchy, especially to reports (usually with several photographs, and sometimes the whole of page five) of the king or the king’s mother undertaking various official activities.

By concentrating on soft, ‘non serious’ news the Swazi press are doing the people of Swaziland a disservice. Swaziland is not a democracy and all broadcasting is controlled by the state to some extent.

To understand what is going on in their own nation and to have some influence and control over matters that affect them, people must have access to information and they must have space in the newspapers to debate matters of public importance. Access to information and debate can help people to prevent governmental excesses and breed trust in the democratic system.

Swaziland’s newspapers don’t really fulfill these roles. The Swazi Press doesn’t go in for serious, informed debate, preferring instead trivia, such as entertainment ‘news’ from the United States.

If I were a lawyer (which I am not) I might offer some mitigation on behalf of the Swazi journalists. Swaziland is not a democracy and there are examples in the past of journalists being harassed if they try to write and publish material that offends the king and his government. Who would blame the journalist for not taking the risk to write stories or articles that would be unpopular with the ruling elite?

There is not much that can be done about this so long as the king continues to hold absolute powers. The Swazi Constitution signed into law in 2006 does nothing to diminish these powers.

Maybe the international community could exert pressure on the kingdom to allow the media proper editorial freedom with legislation to protect and promote the public interest. This might at least encourage Swazi journalists to stop writing about trivial things and get down to the proper job of journalism.

BIASED REPORTING OF REED DANCE

This year’s annual Swazi Reed Dance (Umhlanga) takes place this coming weekend (2-3 September 2007) and the Swazi media have gone into overdrive to cover the preparations.

The annual ceremony at which women from all over the kingdom dance half naked in front of the king is controversial, not least because of the way women generally are treated in Swaziland. Swazi culture dictates that women are ‘minors’ with no legal rights and who are effectively ‘owned’ by their menfolk (usually fathers and husbands).

There is also the expectation (often not met) each year that the king will choose one of the maidens to be his next wife.

Yesterday’s newspapers had reports of ‘maidens’ (mostly young women) signing up to take part. Depending on the newspaper you read there were 50,000 or 55,000 people registered.

The controversial nature of the event means that news media need to be cautious in their reports. The Swazi Observer showed no caution in this report published yesterday (29 August 2007).

The report headlined, ‘Swazi maidens celebrate virginity’ had the following opening paragraphs:

‘This year’s Umhlanga (Reed dance) ceremony commenced yesterday for thousands of proud Swazi maidens to celebrate their virginity.

‘Those who doubt themselves will hide their bodies and shy away from the traditional event.

‘Others, who will boycott the event, are those that have been polluted by perverted teachings of foreign preachers, who have made sure that Swazi culture and traditions are undermined while their pockets are bulging with money collected as tithes from gullible Swazis.

‘Luckily, God has been on the Swazi side and not much has been achieved to turn people away from their culture.

‘This year will be no different as the best of Swazi colour will be there for display for nations of the world to watch and cherish. The Reed dance has been described by many observers as the most colourful cultural event in the world.’

The report then goes on in similar fashion for many more paragraphs.

In case you are in doubt this report appeared on a page of National News, and not as an opinion column.

If you take the report at face value you are led to believe that the ceremony is uncontroversial, that every woman in Swaziland wants to take part and only those who are not virgins or who have been brainwashed will stay way. According to the report, women who have been ‘polluted’ by ‘foreign preachers’ will not attend the ceremony.

The news report is not a ‘news report’ at all. If you take a very basic definition of ‘news’, news must be about something that is currently happening (which this report is) and it needs to be based on facts and also have some kind of balance when matters of controversy are involved. The report fails in both of these last tests.

Article one of the Swaziland National Association of Journalists Code of Conduct states that a journalist should provide the public with unbiased, accurate, balanced and comprehensive information. This report fails article one comprehensively.

The ‘Swazi maidens celebrate virginity’ report fails the news test, but any regular reader of the Swazi Observer would not be too surprised that it is biased in its reporting. The Observer supports ‘traditional’ culture in Swaziland and is after all owned by a company that is in turn effectively controlled by the Swazi Royal Family.

The Observer is also big on fundamentalist Christianity and enjoys moralising, as this paragraph from the report testifies,

‘Taking part in the Reed dance is the pride of each and every well-meaning
Swazi maiden, who prides herself on keeping her body pure from earthly
contamination like early sex and outright promiscuity.’

We have many more days of media coverage of the Reed Dance to look forward to but let’s hope that the standard of reporting gets better.

To help the Observer a little: there are a number of ‘rules’ about news reporting that journalism students or professional journalists who are just starting out learn from day one. Among them are that in a news story you should:

- Stick to the facts.
- Do not give your own opinion.
- Keep the report simple and avoid adjectives.
- Act as an observer to the event, not as an advocate.
- Do not get too close to the story.


I hope that is of some assistance.

TV NEWS IGNORES THE PEOPLE

What is the point of television news in Swaziland? I ask this after reviewing several weeks’ worth of evening news bulletins on both of the kingdom’s channels: Swazi TV and Channel S.

The chief executive of Swazi TV Vukani Maziya told a public meeting in June 2007 that the station was going to become a public service broadcaster (PSB), and open up the airways to give more people the chance to get their views heard.

Martin Dlamini, the government’s Director, Information and Media Development, at the same meeting, supported the idea of PSB, describing it as a way to ensure people have ‘the fundamental right to freedom of expression’.

These are fine words but as is usual in Swaziland people in authority tend to say one thing in public and behave quite differently when out of the spotlight.

A very good way to test the fine words is to watch the programmes on the stations and see for oneself what they are doing. One revealing place to look is at the news bulletins and notice who is allowed onto the airways and to listen to what they are saying.

If you take the news bulletins of either of the two Swazi television channels you will see that most of the reports are mundane run of the mill events, such as government media conferences, presentations of donated materials, or workshops from NGOs

In theory, news on television can give space to people who do not have a place to air their views. But for this to work the reports that appear on television need to be of high quality, relevant and useful to the audience. Television needs to allow the expression of a full range of opinions and matters of public concern.

If you watch news bulletins in Swaziland (both Swazi TV and Channel S are the same in this respect) you see that the news is dominated by ‘official’ voices. These are representatives of the monarchy, of government or of non-government organizations.

I have been to events in Swaziland at which government ministers or their representatives have given a welcoming address before the business proper of the day begins. Time and again the television stations will record the official statement of the minister before packing up the camera and moving on, leaving the main purpose of the event uncovered. This shows that in Swaziland it is who is saying something that is more important than what is being said.

Swazi television news excludes the vast majority of people in the country from its news bulletins and it rarely includes stories about ordinary people. Generally, ordinary people are not featured unless they have been victims of misfortune.

The majority of the reports that are broadcast centre on the main business town of Manzini and the kingdom’s capital city Mbabane and the 40-km ‘corridor’ that connects these two.

About 72 per cent of Swazi people live in rural areas and they are not being represented in these bulletins. It is impossible for a television viewer to know what kinds of stories originating from outside Manzini and Mbabane are being missed and exactly how much rural people are at a disadvantage in terms of having their voices heard.

The quality of the journalism on the bulletins is low. Newsgathering in Swaziland (and I include radio and newspapers here) tends to be passive and the media rely on official sources such as the government, police and emergency services for their stories.

The television journalists over-rely on powerful elites as sources and journalists do not pro-actively find alternative sources to provide balance to stories. Reporters tend to receive information from a single source and re-present it unquestioningly in reports.

Journalists tend not to give background information to the stories, even those running from day to day. Instead, they opt for revisiting stories over a period of time, introducing new elements in each new episode. In this way committed viewers might be able to piece together the different parts of the story into a comprehensible whole. But each new episode tends to include only one source, thus there is no balance of views or attempt at interrogation of the powerful.

This demonstrates the biggest single advantage of the present television system to the existing elite of people who run the kingdom. Swazi journalists are unable to perform their vital democratic role, which is to examine what government is and is not doing and to provide the public with information, comment, analysis, criticism and alternative views. Instead, news reports are presented at face value and reporters are not allowed to ask questions that require people in positions of power to justify their statements or actions.

So what is the point of television news in Swaziland? Currently, broadcasters in Swaziland serve the interests of the ruling elites and not those of the people. They make sure that no criticism of the status quo in Swaziland gets on the airwaves and there is no reason to believe that this will change any time soon.