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Administrative
issues
Media Monitoring
Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2005-07
Monday 14th February – Sunday 20th February
2005
THE mechanisms
governing the electoral framework continued to attract the attention
of the media with the nomination of candidates and the gazetting
of rules regulating coverage of political parties on ZBH hogging
the headlines.
For instance,
of the 52 reports ZBH carried on election administration issues,
18 were on the nomination of candidates, 15 on regulations governing
political parties’ access to ZBH, eight on the invitation of observers
and five on the allocation of funds to both ZANU PF and the MDC.
The remaining six glossed over the country’s flawed electoral framework.
ZTV’s current affairs programme, Face the Nation (17/2),
featuring Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, was tailor-made to
give the impression that the country’s electoral environment was
conducive for the holding of democratic elections.
In fact, ZBH’s
reluctance to honestly discuss the electoral framework resulted,
for example, in the broadcaster merely endorsing the broadcasting
services regulations on the coverage of political parties without
analysis.
Neither did
ZBH fully discuss the reasons behind the authorities’ refusal to
register MDC’s Roy Bennett and Zacharia Rioga as candidates for
the elections, nor question government’s list of invited observers.
Only the private media raised such questions.
ZBH’s uncritical
reports were mostly hinged on government voices or on its reporters’
amplification of the ruling party’s opinion. For instance, of the
53 voices the broadcaster quoted, 18 were government and 13 were
reporters’ passive narration of government policies. Only three
alternative voices were quoted, two of which were supportive of
government.
The remaining
22 voices constituted ZBH (4), the MDC (3), ZANU Ndonga (3), ZANU
PF (1), electoral bodies (7) and foreign diplomats (1).
The government
Press adopted a similar trend in 23 reports it carried on administrative
issues. All the reports were just unquestioning endorsements of
official pronouncements.
And like their
broadcasting counterparts, these papers relied more on government
and ZANU PF for comments as shown in Fig.1.
Fig 1 Sourcing
pattern in the government Press on electoral administrative issues
|
ZANU
PF
|
Government
|
MDC
|
Other
opposition
|
Foreign
diplomats
|
Judiciary
|
Electoral
authorities
|
Editorials
|
|
9
|
9
|
1
|
3
|
1
|
4
|
1
|
3
|
In contrast,
private radio stations were more critical in 17 stories they carried
on administrative issues. Twelve of these appeared on Studio 7,
the rest on SW Radio Africa.
However, these
media failed to balance concerns over the electoral framework raised
by the MDC and alternative voices with comments from government
sources.
Although the
private Press demanded accountability from electoral authorities
in the running of elections in six stories, it generally underreported
the administrative issues as shown in Fig.2.
Fig 2 Private
Press coverage of electoral administrative issues
|
Publication
|
Election
Observers
|
Voters’
roll
|
Parties
Finance Act
|
Nomination
|
Equal
Access
|
|
The
Daily Mirror
|
4
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
2
|
|
The
Financial Gazette
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
|
Zimbabwe
Independent
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
|
The
Standard
|
0
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
0
|
|
Sunday
Mirror
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
0
|
|
Total
|
6
|
2
|
0
|
4
|
2
|
In fact, the
private Press’ under-coverage of administrative matters resulted
in the Mirror stable, for instance, being the only one to
report the gazetting of Broadcasting Services (Access to Radio and
Television during elections) regulations.
Visit the MMPZ fact
sheet
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