His Master's Voice, Political Reporting Swaziland 2007 - Misa

His Master’s Voice: Political Reporting in Swaziland 2007

Funded by:

Written by Mary Ellen Rogers

His Master’s Voice

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1

Introduction ............................................................................................................4

2

Rationale.................................................................................................................4

3

What is political reporting?....................................................................................4

4

Objectives ..............................................................................................................5

5

Method ...................................................................................................................6

5.1

Research tool ......................................................................................................... 6

5.2

What media was monitored?.............................................................................. 6

5.3

Time period............................................................................................................. 6

5.4

Limitations ............................................................................................................... 6

6

Executive summary ...............................................................................................7

7

Findings...................................................................................................................9

7.1

Topics....................................................................................................................... 9

7.2

Origin of stories..................................................................................................... 12

7.3

Sex of journalists ................................................................................................... 13

7.4

Story sources......................................................................................................... 14

7.4.1 7.4.2 7.4.3 7.4.4 7.4.5

Number of sources per story...........................................................................................14 Women’s voices................................................................................................................16 Who speaks in political stories?......................................................................................17 What did government speak about?...........................................................................19 Role of sources ..................................................................................................................19

7.5

Type ....................................................................................................................... 20

7.6

Quality of Information ......................................................................................... 21

7.6.1

7.7 7.7.1 7.7.2 7.7.3

Sample stories: uninformative political reporting .......................................................23

Ethics...................................................................................................................... 27 Seek and express the truth..............................................................................................27 Be independent and objective .....................................................................................28 Where was the most unethical coverage?.................................................................29

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7.7.4

7.8 7.8.1 7.8.2 7.8.3

7.9

Sample stories: unethical political reporting ...............................................................29

Bias in political reporting..................................................................................... 31 Where was the most biased coverage?......................................................................33 Sample stories: biased political reporting ....................................................................33 Favourable bias vs critical coverage ...........................................................................35

Treatment of two significant stories................................................................... 37

7.9.1 7.9.2

Story I: the police union ...................................................................................................37 Story II: the Mzikayise trial ................................................................................................39

7.10

Reporting corruption ....................................................................................... 43

7.11

State vs private media .................................................................................... 44

8

Conclusion............................................................................................................46

8.1

Behind the findings .............................................................................................. 47

8.2

Recommendations.............................................................................................. 48

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1

Introduction

This is a study on political reporting in Swaziland over a five-week period during 2007 using the media monitoring research tool developed by the Media Monitoring Project.i A quantitative analysis of political reporting was undertaken covering aspects such as story topics, origin of stories, number of sources, gender representation, diversity of voices, ethical violations and bias. This study also includes a qualitative assessment of the depth of information contained in political stories, ethics and fairness in political coverage as well as the media’s treatment of two significant political stories.

2

Rationale

The MISA Swaziland News Diet Study (2006) revealed that news reporting in Swaziland is heavily dominated by stories about national government and politics. But what are these stories about? And how are they reported? Are these stories informative and educative? Are they analytical or just descriptive? Do they have diverse sources that include progressive voices? Are they fair and balanced? This study seeks to answer these questions. In answering these questions it is hoped the media will be able to better identify their strengths and weaknesses when reporting on government and political issues and thus be better equipped to deliver informative and fair political coverage in the lead-up to the 2008 national elections. Further, the existence of state media in Swaziland is often assumed to taint the quality of journalism, particularly in relation to political matters. This study aims to examine whether there are any significant differences in political coverage between the state and private media.

3

What is political reporting?

For the purposes of this study, political reporting refers to stories in which either national government is the subject or stories that involve substantive political issues. National government includes the executive, legislature and judiciary and specifically includes the King’s Council and those senior traditional leaders who raise political issues. The legislature refers to individual members of parliament, as well as parliament as a whole.

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A political issue refers to matters of government policy, law, government activities and initiatives and the allocation of resources that are capable of drawing some debate. A police car breaks down on the highway. Not a political story. A police car breaks down because the police service does not have the funds to maintain their fleet. A political story. A judge sentences a thief. Not a political story. A judge sentences a corrupt official. A political story.

4

Objectives


Determine what policies, issues and debates are covered in political reporting;




Assess the degree to which political reporting is fair, accurate and balanced;




Examine the extent to which political reporting is informative, in-depth and analytical;




Determine who speaks in political stories;




Assess the diversity of voices in political stories;




Examine to what extent women speak in political stories;




Determine to what extent political reporting is sourced from a variety of regions;




Assess the media’s treatment of two significant political stories;




Determine the gender breakdown of journalists reporting on politics;




Compare aspects of political reporting on TV, print and radio;




Compare the quality of political reporting in the state and private media.

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5

Method

5.1

Research tool

The media monitoring research tool developed by the Media Monitoring Project (MMP) was used to collate and analyse quantitative and qualitative data.

5.2

What media was monitored?

Medium Times of Swaziland Swazi News Times of Swaziland Sunday Swazi Observer Weekend Observer Swazi TV Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Services (SBIS)

Content News, editorials, features, analysis and opinion News, editorials, features, analysis and opinion News, editorials, features, analysis and opinion News, editorials, features, analysis and opinion News, editorials, features, analysis and opinion 20:00 English news bulletin Monday-Friday 18:00 English news bulletin Monday-Friday 18:15 English current affairs Monday-Friday

See Appendix 1 for a list of the Swaziland media industry.

5.3

Time period

The monitoring data used for this study was gathered from two separate time periods during 2007. In total, the media was monitored for five weeks (35 days). Period 1: 12 March 2007 – 1 April 12 2007ii Period 2: 5 November 2007 – 18 November 2007 These periods were chosen at random.

5.4

Limitations


Exclusion of Channel Swazi: Channel Swazi, the smaller of the two domestic television stations, has very limited coverage and could not be accessed from the recording location.




Restricted sample of broadcasting content: Broadcasting content captured for this study included the English evening news bulletins on both SBIS and Swazi TV and the radio current affairs program.iii Political reporting broadcast on other programs was not monitored.

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Exclusion of The Nation: This monthly magazine contains a lot of political reporting, but it was not included in the monitoring.

6

Executive summary

#1

Political coverage lacked diversity: Four topics – labour/workers rights, justice system, development and corruption – occupied 50% of political coverage. Topics such as government spending, democracy, HIV/AIDS and poverty received little attention. Topics p.9

#2

Regional stories were severely lacking: Political reporting gave minimal attention to regional stories and overwhelmingly favoured regional stories from Hhohho. Origin of stories p.12

#3

Female journalists were underrepresented: Female journalists were responsible for just 12% of political coverage. Sex of journalists p.13

#4

Best and worst on female journalists: Swazi TV and SBIS had the highest percentage of female journalists reporting on government and political issues. Swazi News and Times Sunday had no political coverage written by women during the monitoring period. Sex of journalists p.14

#5

The majority of political reporting was single-sourced. 55% of political stories were single-sourced. Story sources p.14

#6

Best and worst on single-sourcing: The Times Sunday had the least number of single-sourced stories (41%), while the Weekend Observer had the most (68%). Story sources p.15

#7

Voices of women absent: Political reporting was heavily dominated by male voices. Female voices barely featured in political stories, accounting for just 4% of all human sources. Women’s voices p.16

#8

Best and worst on female voices: Swazi TV’s political coverage contained the most female voices (23%). Swazi News had just one female source in its political reporting during the monitoring period. Women’s voices p.17

#9

Government voices dominated: Political reporting was dominated by the voices and views of government. Government sources accounted for 57% of all sources, and when government is defined more broadly to include the executive, judiciary and traditional authorities, the dominance of government voices jumped to 75%. Who speaks in political stories? p.17

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#10

Government spoke most frequently about development: When government spoke in the media it was most often about development. Among the topics government spoke about least were social welfare and poverty. What did government speak about? p.19

#11

Voices of experts absent: The representation of experts and independent analysts accounted for less than 1% of all sources. Source role p.19

#12

Very little in-depth political reporting: In-depth political coverage in the form of features and analysis accounted for just 3% of all stories. Type p.20

#13

Most political reporting was event-based: The vast majority of stories were simple event descriptions that failed to provide enough context and address the pertinent issues. Quality of information p.21

#14

One in ten political stories was unethical: 11% of political stories violated at least one ethical principle. The failure to be independent and objective was the most common type of unethical reporting. Ethics p.27

#15

Best and worst on ethical political reporting: The Times Sunday had the lowest percentage of unethical (6%) reporting, while the Weekend Observer had the highest (20%). Where was the most unethical coverage? p.29

#16

Almost all biased reporting favoured government: Most biased stories favoured government by failing to give voice to a key person or party opposing the government view. Bias in political reporting p.31

#17

Best and worst on biased reporting: The Times Sunday contained the lowest percentage of biased political stories (3%). SBIS had the highest percentage of biased coverage (17%). Where was the most biased coverage? p.33

#18

The Times ran the most content critical of government: The Times publications contained the most number of stories critical of government. The Observer displayed cautiousness towards reporting criticisms of government, while SBIS and Swazi TV largely avoided content critical of government. Favourable bias vs critical coverage p.35

#19

The Times provided the most informative and fair coverage of two politically sensitive stories: The stories of the police union and the Mzikayise trial were given the most diverse, informative and fair coverage by the Times. Treatment of two significant stories p.37

#20

The Times ran the most corruption stories: Swazi News contained the highest percentage of corruption coverage, followed by Times Sunday and Times of Swaziland. Reporting corruption p.43

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#21

The state media lacked editorial independence: State broadcasters, SBIS and Swazi TV, ran political reporting that often promoted and favoured government. Notably, the Observer’s coverage had more in common with that of the state media than that of the Times. State vs private media p.44

7

Findings

7.1

Topics

Examining which topics are covered in political reporting tells us not just what type of political events, issues and debates are reported, but also how often. This reveals the media’s choices and priorities when it comes to reporting on government and political issues, but it also reveals something about the government’s choices and priorities and the direction of political debate in the country. Every political story monitored was assigned a topic that best captured what the story was about. Graph 1 shows the top 20 topics canvassed in political stories.

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Graph 1: Topics of political stories - Top 20

Labour/Workers Rights Justice System Development Corruption Drought/Food Insecurity Health Education Environment Diplomacy National Parliament Democracy Government spending Economics Business and investment HIV/AIDS Media Swaziland Conflict Housing Orphans and vulnerable children Poverty 0%

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

14%

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Graph 1 illustrates 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 were 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. Graph 1 shows that 14% of all political reporting was about this topic. Within this topic there was 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. Not one particular labour story dominated. 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 cases involving government, in particular the Mzikayise case (see7.9.2). 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 corruption case involving key government figures, government fraud and conflict of interest stories, in particular, 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% of the political coverage during the monitoring period. On the other hand, government spending, democracy, HIV/AIDS and poverty together accounted for just 9% of all political stories. The following provides explanations of some of the topics that appear on Graph 1. National Parliament refers to stories about debate in parliament that was not issue-specific. For example, parliament’s discussion of performance criticisms, personal attacks and the call for better attendance in parliament. If parliamentary stories were about issue-specific debate, such as debate on hospitals or the budget, these stories would be assigned the topic that best captured this issue, that is, health or government spending respectively.

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Health refers to stories about the government health sector, national health issues involving government, such as, the call for government to respond to the TB crisis and activities of the Ministry of Health. Whereas HIV/AIDS refers to stories that were specifically about government initiatives, statements, policies and programs on HIV/AIDS. Stories about Swaziland conflict were reports about political demonstrations, threats to national stability and, in particular, the threat of violence and bloodshed resulting from the Mzikayise case.

7.2

Origin of stories

The origin of every story was captured to measure the extent to which the media covers political stories from all regions of the country. Political reporting is very often of national significance, so stories that were not specific to a single region, but were of relevance to the nation as a whole, were assigned ‘national’ as their origin. Graph 2 shows the breakdown of the origin of political stories. Graph 2: Origin of political stories

Lubombo 2%

Shiselweni 2% Manzini 1%

Hhohho 9%

National 86%

Political reporting was overwhelming dominated by stories of national significance. Stories with a national focus accounted for 86% of all political coverage. It’s expected that many stories about national government would be of national significance, but the representation of regional political stories was extremely low. Further, Graph 2 demonstrates that when political stories were local, Hhohho was clearly the favoured region. Hhohho is home to the capital and is also the

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region where all the media houses are based. The media’s concentration in Hhohho limits its potential to report equitably on all regions. Lubombo, Shiselweni and Manzini barely featured in political reporting. This is in line with previous research showing that these regions generally get very little attention in the media.iv

7.3

Sex of journalists

Graph 3 shows the breakdown of male and female journalists responsible for political stories. Graph 3: Sex of journalists Female 12%

Male 88%

The monitoring revealed that only 12% of all political coverage was written by female journalists. The representation of women in political reporting is significantly lower than in general news reporting, where previous research found female journalists accounted for 21% of all stories.v Reporting on politics is clearly a male domain. How do the media compare on the sex of journalists? Graph 4 shows the breakdown of female and male journalists reporting on politics for each medium.

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Graph 4: Sex of journalist by medium 100% 80% 60%

Female Male

40% 20%

O bs W er ee ve ke r nd O bs Ti er m ve es r of Sw az ila nd Sw az iN ew Ti s m es Su nd ay

SB IS Sw

az i

Sw az iT V

0%

The broadcasting sector had a much higher inclusion of female journalists reporting on politics than the print sector. Swazi TV, in particular, is to be commended for having an almost even share between the sexes. The Times publications had almost no female reporters writing about government and political issues. Men wrote all the political coverage in both the weekly publications, Swazi News and Times Sunday. The Times of Swaziland had just three stories written by women for the entire five-week monitoring period. The Swazi Observer and Weekend Observer performed only fractionally better than the Times with 5% and 2% of political coverage respectively being reported by women.

7.4

Story sources

7.4.1

Number of sources per story

When analysing story sourcesvi we first asked, to what extent do political stories rely on one source or multiple sources? It is assumed that stories ought to contain multiple sources. Stories that rely on too few sources are more likely to be uninformative and/or unbalanced. Graph 5 shows the breakdown of the number of sources per story.

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Graph 5: Number of sources per story None 6%

Three or more 12%

Two 27%

Single 55%

The majority (55%) of political stories in the Swazi media are based on just one source. This mirrors previous research where single-sourced stories accounted for 51% of general news reporting.vii Once again, single-sourcing proves to be a chronic problem in the Swazi media. And the problem is not confined to a particular medium. Graph 6 shows the percentage of single-sourced political stories for each medium. Graph 6: Single-sourced stories (%) by medium 80% 60% 40% 20%

O bs er ve r

SB IS

W ee ke nd

TV Sw az i

az i Sw of

Ti m es

az i Sw

la nd

ve r O bs er

ew s N az i Sw

Ti m es

Su nd ay

0%

The number of single-sourced stories in political coverage is fairly evenly distributed across all media. Though the Times Sunday had notably fewer singlesourced stories (41%) than the worst performer, Weekend Observer (68%), it still published an extraordinarily high number of single-sourced stories.

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This habit of single-sourcing proves to be a major contributor to other problematic features of political reporting such as poor quality of information (See 7.6) and bias (See 7.8).

7.4.2

Women’s voices

To what extent do women’s voices feature in political reporting? Monitors captured the sex of every source to examine the gender balance in political stories. Graph 7 shows the breakdown of male and female sources. Graph 7: Sex of sources Female 4%

Male 96%

Political reporting was overwhelmingly dominated by male voices. In fact, women barely featured in political stories at all, accounting for just 4% of all human sources.viii This is, in part, a reflection of the marginalisation of women in Swazi politics. However, it’s not just women in government that are not being sourced for political stories. Graph 7 shows that women in every sector of society are not having their voices heard on political events and issues. The 4% that accounted for female voices comprised mostly of voices from government, in particular, the Deputy Prime Minister and the two female Cabinet members, Minister for Tourism, Environment and Telecommunications and the Minister for Energy and Natural Resources. Non-government female sources were extremely rare. This is despite the fact that there was a lot of coverage of stories that particularly affect women, such as drought and food insecurity, development, and workers rights. Which medium performed best on accessing female sources? Graph 8 shows the percentage of male and female sources accessed by each medium.

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Graph 8: Sex of source by medium 100% 80% Female

60%

Male

40% 20%

Sw

az i

N

ew s

SB IS

O bs er ve r of Sw az ila nd Ti m es

ve r

W ee ke nd

Sw

az i

O bs er

Su nd ay

Ti m es

Sw az i

TV

0%

Swazi TV outperformed all other media on accessing female sources. One in five (23%) of all sources on Swazi TV were women. Swazi News clearly performed the worst, accessing just one female source (3%) in five weeks of political coverage. It’s worth noting that the female voices on Swazi TV were almost exclusively from government. Only two non-government female voices were included in the Swazi TV coverage.

7.4.3

Who speaks in political stories?

In addition to recording the sex of every source, monitors categorised each source according to which sector of society they represented in the story.ix This enables us to assess whose views and voices we are exposed to in the media’s political coverage. Graph 9 shows the top 10 source groups that were accessed in political stories.

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Graph 9: Top 10 source groups 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% s ent iety tem nions nders State orities tatals arties NGO f s u rnm il soc e Sys P U h o a t e F l r v u d a v a a A P tic Ci Go itic He ional Jus Pol it d a Tr

Political reporting was overwhelmingly dominated by the voices and views of government. Government sources accounted for 57% of all sources in political coverage. Government here refers to cabinet, ministry staff, MPs, senators, spokespeople and the like. The second biggest single group of sources after government was civil society, which accounted for 13% of all sources in political coverage. Civil society refers to sources such as educators, workers, ordinary citizens, business people and religious leaders. It is expected that those in government will speak most frequently in political stories. But Graph 9 reveals an enormous discrepancy between the number of voices from government and the number of voices from the rest of society. In fact, if we use the broader definition of government, to include head of state, the justice system, traditional authorities and parastatals, the dominance of government voices in political stories jumps from 57% to 75%. If we combine this finding that 57% of all sources were government sources with the finding that 55% of stories were single-sourced (See 7.4.1), then a typical political story is a story with one source and that source is from government.

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7.4.4

What did government speak about?

If government was by far the most dominant voice in political stories, what kind of issues was government most often speaking about? Graph 10 shows the top five topics most frequently addressed by government in the media. Graph 10: Topics addressed by government (% stories featuring government sources) Development Corruption Labour/Unemployment Drought/Food Insecurity Health

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

The monitoring revealed that government spoke most often about development. Fifteen per cent (15%) of all stories featuring government voices were about development. The issues that government spoke about least were poverty, crime and social welfare. Development was also a favoured topic for the King. When the King was heard in political coverage he was almost exclusively speaking about development issues. On occasion he was captured speaking on interstate relations, economics and corruption. Just two stories captured the King speaking about HIV/AIDS.

7.4.5

Role of sources

Every source is also categorised according to the role they play in the story. For example, a source might be the subject of the story, a spokesperson for a certain organization, an expert giving independent analysis or he/she might be providing information based on personal experience of the event/issue. Examining the role of sources revealed that an overwhelming majority (81%) of sources were speaking in the story because they were the subject of the story, that is, the story was about something they had done or said.

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What does this tell us about political reporting? It’s evidence that political reporting is event-driven. That is, most political stories were built around describing who said or did what. A greater diversity in the role of sources to include analysts and experts or people speaking from personal experience would indicate an effort to go beyond the event itself, provide analysis and a diversity of viewpoints that would better contextualise the story. But accessing such sources was extremely rare. Experts and individuals speaking from personal experience accounted for less than 2% of all sources.

7.5

Type

In what format do we read and hear about political issues? That is, do these stories come to us in opinion pieces, as news items, or as in-depth features and so on? Recording the story type enables us to see how diverse the coverage is and to examine to what extent the media provides interpretation and analysis of political stories. Graph 11 shows the breakdown of story type. Graph 11: Type of political stories

Editorial 3% Feature/news analysis 3%

In brief/shorts, fact boxes 2% Interview/ Q & A 1%

Opinion piece 5%

News story 86%

The majority of political stories (86%) came to us as news items. It’s expected that news stories would dominate the type of political coverage since all media naturally devote most space to news items. However, graph 11 does demonstrate that there was remarkably little political coverage in the form of indepth features and analysis.

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7.6

Quality of Information

The quality of information in a story was measured using the following six information categories:  Context basic: the story contains the basic details so the reader/listener knows who did what and when;  Causes: the story explains the reasons for the event occurring;  Consequences: the story includes actual and possible impacts of the event;  Solutions: the story mentions possible solutions;  Legislation: the story refers to relevant legislation or policy;  Context In-depth: the story is very well-contextualised, going beyond the event itself to examine the backdrop against which it occurred and broader social consequences, making relevant connections with other events and mentioning recurring patterns. Not every story ought to meet all six categories of information, but clearly the more levels of information provided, the better contextualised the story is. Graph 12 shows the percentage of political stories that met each information category. Graph 12: Information categories (% stories) Context Basic Causes Consequences Solutions Legislation Context In-depth 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

The monitoring revealed that almost every political story (98%) provided the basic information needed to know who did what, where and when. But Graph

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12 shows that few stories went beyond providing these basic details to include more in-depth information and context. The majority of stories only met one of the six information criteria (context basic). This chronic lack of information indicates that political coverage was almost exclusively event-based reporting. That is, most stories were simple event descriptions with no exploration or analysis of the key issues. This trend was evident across all media. Even though print media clearly has more scope to investigate stories and provide in-depth analysis of issues, much of the print coverage was event-based. There were three common features of political coverage across all media that determined the uncritical, descriptive nature of political stories. 1.

Poor sourcing: Sources were usually confined to the person who was the subject of the story. For example, if the story was about the Prime Minister denouncing the police union, most reporters would only source the Prime Minister. There was very rarely any effort to take the event/issue to other relevant sources to seek verification, responses, comment or analysis. Adding sources is the most obvious way to deepen information and develop the story. But the monitoring revealed journalists across all media did not regularly source people other than those who were the subject of the event. And broadcasting, in particular, demonstrated a pattern of ignoring relevant sources in favour of government sources. For example, a Swazi TV report of a film industry conference attended by the Minister for Public Service and Information interviewed the Minister only, despite the fact that there were many other non-government sources that would have been more relevant and informative.

2.

Failure to ask questions: Reporters tended to take events at face value. That is, they rarely asked questions of relevant sources and scrutinized the underlying issues. This resulted in very superficial reporting that covered who, what, when, where but repeatedly ignored the how and the why of the event. It was rare to find evidence of the reporter directly questioning sources. Typically, a political story would just summarise the source’s public statements. Few stories displayed an effort by the journalist to pursue the source with follow-up questions or take questions to other relevant sources. This was particularly the case for television and radio.

3.

Failure to contextualise: Few stories were properly contextualized. It was clear from many stories that the reporter’s aim was to report the simple facts of an event. There was rarely an effort to go beyond these basic details to explain the backdrop against which the event occurred, conduct research, interview diverse sources, find connections to other relevant stories, events, or mention recurring patterns. As such, political stories were mostly reported as isolated incidents, with no attempt to

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explain the significance of the event within the broader social context, examine the impacts and mention solutions.

7.6.1

Sample stories: uninformative political reporting

Radio The overwhelming majority of political stories on SBIS consisted simply of a summary of what one person said, usually a person from government. Stories rarely included a multiplicity of voices and views and were never properly contextualized. The major limitation regarding the quality of information in the SBIS political coverage was the lack of analysis on the current affairs program. The current affairs program is the forum for analysis. Its purpose is to examine stories in an indepth manner. But in most cases a “story” on the current affairs program consisted of a very long, seemingly unedited, sound bite from one person, usually a politician. This resulted in a lot of irrelevant information, but also very partial information that was not contextualised, questioned or critiqued, or balanced with information from other sources.

SBIS News 18:00 21 March 2007 Story: The Minister of Finance condemns civil servants for marching to demand better pay. Sources: Majozi Sithole, Minister of Finance. Quality of Information: This story was just a summary of the minister’s statement dismissing the workers’ demands. As a result there were serious information gaps and many questions were left unanswered. The journalist failed to answer key questions, such as, what are the workers’ grievances, what are the current pay and working conditions for civil servants, should the government be doing more to meet their needs, how will this impasse be resolved? These questions could have been answered by including more sources. But the voices of civil servants and unions were ignored, so the information was extremely limited and one-sided.

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SBIS Current Affairs 18:15 13 November 2007 Story: The Minister of Enterprise and Employment signs an investment deal with the government of Taiwan. Sources: Lutfo Dlamini, Minister of Enterprise and Employment. Quality of Information: This story consisted entirely of one very lengthy sound bite from the Minister. As a result there was almost nothing of real value in this story. It contained a lot of irrelevant information at the expense of providing context, analysis and a multiplicity of voices and views. Given that this story aired on the current affairs program it was expected to go beyond just reporting the minister’s statement to providing analysis of the issue, explaining the investment context and assessing government’s decision. There was no effort to answer, let alone even pose, key questions, such as, how will the deal benefit Swaziland and what’s in it for Taiwan?

Television Swazi TV political coverage was similarly simplistic and uninformative. Typically, a story would consist of one or two long, uninformative sound bites that would be presented in a vacuum, that is, without a script from the journalist explaining and contextualising the event/isssue. This type of reporting provided a lot of irrelevant information instead of seeking out the pertinent or meaningful information needed to make sense of the story and its context. It should also be noted the absence of a daily current affairs program on Swazi TV limits its ability to provide in-depth, analytical political reporting.

Swazi TV News 20:00 14 November 2007 Story: The government launches the Poverty Reduction Strategy Action Plan. Sources: Absalom Dlamini, Minister of Economic Planning; Chinwe Dike, UNDP Country Representative. Quality of Information: There was no useful information in this story at all. The entire report consisted of two uninformative sound bites back-to-back. The first was a long sound bite from the Minister in which he spoke in very vague and repetitive terms about how proud he was to finally have the action plan. He didn’t say anything about

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poverty in Swaziland or the content of the action plan itself. The second sound bite from a UN representative similarly did very little to explain the action plan. She spoke at length about the UN instruments and mechanisms that led to the action plan. The reporter failed to provide any substantive information on the issue of poverty in Swaziland and how the government plans to tackle it. The very basic questions were not answered, such as, how dire is the poverty situation, what are the main causes, what does the action plan propose, how will it be implemented, who’s responsible, what timeframe is set, what do stakeholders think of the action plan and how will it make a difference? The report was essentially meaningless.

Print The print media provided the most informative political coverage, but it does have the advantage of having more scope and flexibility than broadcast news programs. However, despite this advantage, the print media was still beset with similar information limitations to that of broadcasting. Both print publications over-relied on event-based reporting. Few stories demonstrated an effort to exhaust all information avenues by questioning multiple sources, researching and contextualising the issue, and most of all scrutinising government. These weaknesses were even glaringly evident in pieces that intended to be analytical. Very often the most informative analytical coverage came from freelancers or experts in a particular field who were not full-time staff writers.

Times of Swaziland 15 November 2007 page 4 Story: ‘PM doubts Ngozo was shot at 35cm radius’. The Prime Minister defends the police service against allegations that officers fatally shot an unarmed suspect at close range. Sources: Absalom Themba Dlamini, Prime Minister. Quality of Information: This 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

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the current coroner will hear this case and what the likely consequences would be for the officers involved.

Swazi Observer 20 March 2007 page 3 Story: ‘I never influenced tender board – Marwick’. A member of parliament who owns a drug supply company denies interfering with the drug procurement processes. Sources: A government report commissioned by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare portfolio committee. Quality of Information: This story was based entirely on a government report that is not fully explained and contextualised. The story concentrated on the accused MP’s defence against allegations of corruption, but we are not told how he is said to have acted corruptly and in what way his alleged interference lead to the drug shortage. The story relied heavily on long quotes from the report without explaining the content and seeking other information that might corroborate or counter the information in the report. There was no detail about the systems of drug procurement and how they might be manipulated. No questions were asked of the MP’s defence. The report’s conclusions were not explained, there was no information about how this report will be used and what would be the likely consequences for the accused MP.

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7.7

Ethics

To what extent was political reporting ethical? Graph 13 shows the breakdown of ethical and unethical political coverage. Adherence to journalism ethics was measured using the principles listed in Appendix 2. Graph 13: Unethical coverage (% stories) Unethical 11%

Ethical 89%

The monitoring revealed one in ten (11%) political stories violated or ignored at least one ethical principle.x The high incidences of simplistic and descriptive reporting rather than in-depth, analytical reporting limited opportunities for ethical violations. For many stories the question of ethics was not applicable. There were just two ethical principles that were repeatedly violated:  Principle 1: journalists must seek and express the truth  Principle 2: journalists must report independently and objectively.

7.7.1

Seek and express the truth

When assessing whether a story violates principle 1, monitors looked for glaring inaccuracies, an obvious attempt to obscure the truth or a total disregard for seeking and reporting the truth. It is often difficult to cite clear evidence of the two latter examples, so where there was doubt no violation was recorded. Stories that violated principle 1 ranged from the seemingly minor instances of poor fact checking and misleading headlines to the more serious instances of failure to include information crucial to reporting the story truthfully.

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‘Children’s rights not given priority’ (Swazi Observer 23 March 2007, page 12) was an example of the failure to fact check. The story referred to two bills that were said to be undergoing debate in parliament, yet no such bills exist. The Swazi News ran the following inaccurate headline: “Govt buys 74 escort cars for E20m illegally” (Swazi News 17 November 2007, page 2), yet there was no evidence in the story to prove it was illegal, but only perhaps questionable. It was clearly a case of using a misleading headline to sensationalise the story. The more common form of violating principle 1 – failing to report vital information - was evident in ‘Administrative issues cause shortage of drugs’ (Times of Swaziland 14 March 2007, page 5), which made no mention of corruption as the alleged cause of the national drug shortage, but allowed government sources to say that the shortage was only due to simple “administrative issues”. There was clearly no effort to seek the truth and get to the bottom of the story. See further examples at 7.7.4

7.7.2

Be independent and objective

The ethical duty to be independent and objective (principle 2) is breached when there is failure to present competing perspectives that results in prejudice to a certain person or party, when there is a failure to maintain independence by acting as mouthpiece for a particular group and publishing propaganda or when there is failure to distinguish comment from fact. Principle 2 was the most commonly violated principle. Almost every story that violated this principle gave just one viewpoint on an event/issue where there were clearly opposing views that ought to have been presented. Not every story contains competing perspectives, but those that do must give representation to all sides to avoid subjectivity and bias. The most concerning feature of stories that failed to be independent and objective was that almost all of them presented the views of governmentxi without seeking the opposing views or information that would present the story objectively. The over-reliance on stories based on one government source made it all the more risky for the media to compromise their independence and promote government interests. The sample stories below (See 7.7.4) demonstrate how this uncritical approach to reporting could result in the blind delivery of government ‘spin’.

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7.7.3

Where was the most unethical coverage?

Table 1 shows the percentage of unethical political coverage for each medium. Table 1: Unethical coverage by medium Ethical violations Medium (% stories) Weekend Observer 20% SBIS 16% Swazi News 14% Swazi Observer 11% Swazi TV 10% Times of Swaziland 7% Times Sunday 6%

The Weekend Observer contained the most unethical political reporting. This reflects the Weekend Observer’s tendency to publish government claims and statements without questioning, verifying, critiquing, and presenting opposing views. Most unethical stories in the Weekend Observer violated principle 2. Similarly, unethical stories on SBIS most often breached principle 2 by ignoring information that would challenge or oppose the government view. However, it should be noted that this type of unethical reporting is more expected of SBIS than of the Weekend Observer since SBIS operates as a government department and has no pretensions of being independent from government. Table 1 shows that only Times Sunday and Times of Swaziland were significantly below the average for ethical violations (11%). The Times Sunday was the medium least likely to report on government and political issues unethically.

7.7.4

Sample stories: unethical political reporting

SBIS News 18:00 19 March 2007 Story: An MP denies accusations he is involved in the drug tender corruption scandal. Sources: Marwick Khumalo MP Violates principle 2: The only source was the accused MP. The story presented his opinion only and ignored any evidence against him. The MP was able to discredit others and put his side of the story completely unchallenged. The report did not explain why the MP was

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accused or given any contextual detail, it was simply a subjective account of the MP’s defence.

Swazi TV News 20:00 30 March 2007 Story: Government consults media stakeholders on six draft media bills. Sources: Cyril Kunene, Principal Secretary for Ministry of Public Service and Information. Violates principle 1: This report was entirely based on one government source who stated that the meeting was extremely fruitful when, in fact, as was reported in the print media, participants almost boycotted the meeting several times. Participants were very critical of the content of the bills and of government’s failure to consult widely. This was not reported on Swazi TV. The views of the stakeholders were ignored. The Principal Secretary’s statements were taken at face value with no effort to question or fact check. That no effort was made to verify his account and seek the views of other participants displayed a blatant disregard for the ethical duty to report the event truthfully and objectively.

Times of Swaziland 13 November 2007 page 5 Story: ‘Justice PS not a member of the JSC - Government’. The Deputy Attorney General denies accusations that the membership of the Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs on the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) is unconstitutional. Sources: Mzwandile Fakudze, Deputy Attorney General. Violates principle 2: This report was extremely unbalanced as it was just a summary of the views of the Deputy Attorney General, with no effort to seek competing perspectives. There was no scrutiny of his statements and no questions posed to him or other sources that could shed light on what is a very controversial issue. There was no information to help explain objectively whether there is a conflict of interest in the make-up of the JSC membership. We were only given the subjective view of government. Any information that might oppose this view was ignored.

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Swazi Observer 22 March 2007 Page 6 Story: ‘Union cops not victimized – PM’. The Prime Minister denies claims that members of the police union are being victimised by the Royal Swaziland Police Service. Sources: Absalom Themba Dlamini, Prime Minister. Violates principle 2: This story only presented the very partial views of the Prime Minister, who clearly has an interest in claiming the police service is untroubled. There was no information to explain and verify the reports of victimization. The claims of the officers involved, widely reported in other media, were ignored. The report was essentially government propaganda, allowing the PM to discredit the police union and spread the fiction that the police service is not fractured.

7.8

Bias in political reporting

Bias was measured using three indicators – language, presentation and omission. Language and presentation bias were noted when a story clearly used language in a way that favoured or caused damage to a particular person or group or where the presentation of the story showed substantial favour or disfavour. Bias of omission was noted where the story failed to give a person or group the opportunity to respond to a substantial allegation or to an issue that was of great significance to them. Bias was only recorded when there was very clear evidence of it in the story. Graph 14 shows the percentage of biased stories in political reporting.

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Graph 14: Biased coverage (% stories) Biased 8%

Fair 92%

The monitoring revealed 8% of all political stories were clearly biased. The concern is that not only is this a significant number of biased stories, but also that the stories displayed a clear pattern of bias. The biased reports overwhelmingly favoured government. The most common form of bias was bias of omission. Almost every instance of biased reporting favoured government by failing to give voice to a key person or party opposing the government view. The tendency to base stories on one government source significantly increased the risk of omission bias. However, not every story relying on one government source was necessarily biased. It must be remembered bias is only recorded when the absence of a certain person’s or party’s views clearly disfavoured them or caused damage to their image and favoured the party whose views were presented. There were just a few instances of language and/or presentation bias in political reporting. The most blatant example of such bias was on Swazi TV’s coverage of stories involving the monarchy. Every story featuring the King or other member of the royal family that aired on Swazi TV was presented at the top of the bulletin, despite its questionable newsworthiness. And in some instances these reports used exaggerated language to favourably describe the monarchy. Every story involving the King on SBIS also ran as the lead story, regardless of its significance or newsworthiness.

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7.8.1

Where was the most biased coverage?

Table 2 shows the percentage of biased stories for each medium. Table 2: Biased coverage by medium Medium Bias (% of stories) SBIS 17% Weekend Observer 14% Swazi TV 10% Swazi Observer 9% Swazi News 4% Times of Swaziland 4% Times Sunday 3%

Given that the most common form of bias was omission bias, it’s not surprising that SBIS had the highest number of biased stories. SBIS political reporting displayed a very clear pattern of telling the government perspective only. It’s worth noting again that almost all biased reporting favoured government. This was the only demonstrable pattern in biased coverage and it was evident across all media. That is, every medium was guilty, at some point, of giving government favourable coverage. No medium displayed a pattern of repeatedly opposing any particular person or group. Table 2 shows the Times publications, as with ethical adherence, had the lowest incidences of unfair reporting.

7.8.2

Sample stories: biased political reporting

SBIS Current Affairs 18:15 14 March 2007 Story: The government spokesperson denies government is to blame for the national drug shortage. Sources: Percy Simelane, Government Spokesperson. Omission bias: This report blatantly favoured government by allowing the government spokesperson to claim, unchallenged, that government is not responsible for the drug shortage. Any information that would counter this claim was ignored. The obvious question is, if government is not to blame for the drug shortage, then who is? But this question was not even posed. There was no scrutiny of the role of government in ensuring the drug supply, no opposing voices, and critically

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absolutely no mention of the allegations of political interference with the drug procurement processes.

Swazi TV News 18:00 22 March 2007 Story: The King receives letters of credence from two foreign leaders. Sources: King Mswati III, Ambassador of Taiwan, Ambassador of Spain. Presentation bias: Despite having very little newsworthy content this report was the lead story and ran for over seven minutes. It was full of music and fanfare with excessive, repetitive footage of the King. There was no substantive information about diplomacy and foreign relations. It was just an event description featuring long sound bites from the King. This presentation bias toward stories featuring the monarchy was reinforced when the second story about water shortages was cut short, followed by a long break in transmission, after which the anchor returned to say, “We’re supposed to take the following story”. The following story was about the charity work of one of the King’s wives. The water shortage story was returned to later in the bulletin.

Times of Swaziland 22 March 2007 page 3 Story: ‘Government workers demon-possessed – Majozi’. The Minister of Finance dismisses workers’ demand for better pay, saying they are demon-possessed. Sources: Minister of Finance, Majozi Sithole; Mary Magwaza, Senator. Omission bias: This report favoured government by just presenting the government argument and ignoring the opposing view from the workers. Both government sources paint the workers in a negative light, claiming they do not deserve more pay and that they are up to no good staging demonstrations and even going so far as to suggest they are evil. The workers were not given a chance to respond to government’s very one-sided comments.

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Weekend Observer 17-18 March 2007 page 9 Story: ‘Police Commissioner, DPC meet staff associations’. The Police Commissioner and his deputy meet with the police service staff association to discuss pay and working conditions. Sources: Vusi Masuku, Royal Swaziland Police Service PRO. Omission bias: Despite this story involving a very contentious issue we are only given the views of the police service management. The opposing views from police officers and unions are ignored. The PRO claims the service is not victimizing officers who join the union and is, in fact, doing all it can to ensure good pay and working conditions. This portrays the service in a good light, while ignoring the views of officers who claim the service is not ensuring fair conditions and is victimising union members.

7.8.3

Favourable bias vs critical coverage

To what extent was the pattern of biased stories favouring government in political coverage intentional? Bias in the media can very often occur unintentionally. A lack of objectivity and independence in reporting could be the result of a lazy or inexperienced approach to sourcing, researching, information gathering and fact checking. Biased reporting can simply be put down to poor journalistic skills. Even if there is a distinct pattern in biased reporting, we can’t definitively say it’s purposeful because it can be the result of unconscious societal assumptions that shape reporters’ and editors’ decisionmaking. Assessing the media’s intention in biased reporting does not lie within the scope of this research. However, while we cannot monitor a journalist’s intention, it is worthwhile to examine to what extent the media included reporting that was critical of government. If a particular medium not only produced favourable coverage of government but also avoided any coverage that might criticise government, then we could reasonably assume that there was an element of deliberate bias. Broadcasting provided the least critical coverage of government. The print media does have more scope for critical coverage through features, analysis and opinion pieces. But even just comparing news stories across print and broadcasting, it was clear both Swazi TV and SBIS had a much greater tendency than the print media to focus heavily on positive stories about government activities and initiatives, and both Swazi TV and SBIS relied almost exclusively on government sources. This limited opportunities for critical reporting on government. Even when there were stories that would be expected to include

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information critical of government, for example, the government response to the drought or the police union dispute, both SBIS and Swazi TV would ignore the criticisms and summarise government’s views only. It should be mentioned that Swazi TV’s avoidance of critical coverage was slightly less predictable than SBIS. For example, Swazi TV did run a story on workers grievances against government that sourced the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) and the Swaziland Federation of Labour (SFL). But that was a very rare exception to the norm. SBIS only mentioned criticisms of government if they came from within government, for example, if they were criticisms aired during parliamentary debate. The print media, by contrast, did not appear to systematically avoid critical coverage of government. The Times, in particular, ran a number of stories that aired criticisms of government activities or brought attention to government failures and crises. But interestingly, a substantial number of critical stories published in the Times were not run in the Observer at all. The following are examples of stories critical of government published in the Times but not in the Observer:







criticisms of the PM over his handling of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed suspect; attacks on the Finance Minister from civil servants; criticisms of government budget decisions from NGOs; criticisms of government from police union members; attacks on government for its failure to respond to the TB crisis; and attacks on government for mismanaging the OVC bursary.

The Observer did not avoid criticisms of government entirely, but it ran substantially fewer criticisms of government than did the Times. In addition, Times editorials and opinion pieces often included scathing attacks on government. Whereas commentary pieces in the Observer were very scarce and when they were published they were rarely critical of government. It’s noteworthy that no medium ran criticisms of the King.

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7.9

Treatment of two significant stories

The following compares the media’s coverage of two significant political stories from the monitoring period.

7.9.1

Story I: the police union The story: Efforts by police officers to form a union met with opposition from the senior management of the Royal Swaziland Police Service (RSPS) and government. The union leader was promptly sacked from the service and reports emerged of union members being victimised and harassed by the RSPS. Union members decided to challenge the government in the High Court for recognition of their right to form a union. At the time of monitoring the court was yet to deliver a judgment.

Radio Coverage of this story on the SBIS evening news bulletin was extremely selective and unbalanced. Notably the story was never covered on the current affairs program. Sources: All stories were single-sourced, using government sources only - the Prime Minister, the King and senior management of the RSPS. The voices of the officers and other unionists were ignored. Government sources were never questioned or had their statements critiqued or opposed. Information: The content was very selective. All the stories simply gave summaries of government statements. There was no mention of what prompted the union formation (the pay rise discrepancies), no reports of the victimization and harassment of union members, no mention of the rights of the officers or the constitutional issues involved. No story scrutinized government’s handling of the matter. Ethics: All stories, except one, were extremely unbalanced, subjective accounts of the government’s position. The SBIS coverage thus clearly favoured government.

Television There was no coverage of this story on the Swazi TV evening news bulletin during the monitoring period.

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Print The print coverage, especially that of the Times, was significantly more informative and ethical than radio coverage. The Times of Swaziland provided three times more coverage of the story than the Swazi Observer.xii Sources: The Swazi Observer relied solely on government sources the Prime Minister, senior management of the RSPS and, in one instance, the King. Not a single Observer story gave voice to the police union members or others representing their interests. All stories were single-sourced. The Times performed much better by providing more diverse sources and most often including at least two sources per story. The Times sources included police union members, political activists and other unions. The Times did often source officialdom from the RSPS, but it was usually balanced with the voice a union member. Information: The main weakness of the print coverage was the lack of information and analysis. The overwhelming majority of reports were just event descriptions. The coverage lacked context and crucial information such as specific details about the working conditions and pay in the police service to understand the causes of the union formation, examination of the workers’ rights issues and the crucial constitutional aspects of the story, examination of the role unions play in police services and analysis of the government’s position and handling of the matter. Even opinion pieces and editorials lacked analysis and inquiry and were often uninformative. There was one opinion piece (‘Applause for police union’, Weekend Observer 17-18 March 2007, page 19) that stood out because it did make an effort to contextualise the story by looking at the broader causes and consequences. But in general, analysis and opinion pieces displayed a poverty of information and a lack of critical thinking and, as such, the print media failed to foster meaningful argument and debate on the police union issue. Ethics: The Times coverage was ethical and fair. The Observer’s coverage, however, often favoured government. More than half of the stories in the Observer were unbalanced because they only reported the very partial views of government, giving no opportunity to the union members or those representing their interests to put their side.

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Conclusion The most informative, comprehensive and fair coverage of the police union story was found in the Times. But the Times did have major weaknesses with its quality of information and its lack of inquiry and analysis. Superficial, event-based reporting dominated. Reporters often failed to fully explain and engage with the core issues and rarely questioned or scrutinised the authorities. The Observer provided very little coverage for such a politically important issue and its reporting was simplistic and often biased towards government. The most unethical and least informative coverage was on SBIS, while Swazi TV ignored the story.

7.9.2

Story II: the Mzikayise trial The Story: The family of the late chief, Mzikayise Ntshangase, took the government to court over its refusal to allow the chief to be buried at his birthplace. The government and traditional authorities objected on the grounds that the chief had been evicted from the area by King Sobhuza II. The High Court ruled in favour of the family but government appealed the decision. The Supreme Court upheld the High Court ruling, but traditional authorities then threatened to reject the court’s decision, posing a threat to the rule of law and sparking fears of violence.

Radio The SBIS coverage was very limited, especially given the political significance of the story. All reports completely ignored the political dimensions that made the story newsworthy. When it was reported it was given very little prominence. On the day of the Supreme Court judgment it was not the lead story as might be expectedxiii, and there was no coverage of the court’s ruling on the current affairs program, which instead ran stories about government programs on poverty and soil erosion. Sources: Most reporting was sourced from statements made by the judges and lawyers. But in one instance the traditional authorities opposing the burial were sourced as well as one member of the Mzikayise family. However, these sources were not directly questioned about the pertinent issues. Information: All reports were simple event descriptions with no context and no information to explain the political aspects of the case, its significance and possible consequences. The SBIS coverage never mentioned the threat to rule of law and

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independence of the judiciary, the tension between traditional authorities and the judiciary and the threats of violence. Critically, there was no information to explain the legal dimensions, that is, no explanation of the court’s judgment and why government lost the case. It must be noted that, given the current affairs program did not cover the story, there was no scope for in-depth analysis. Ethics: The stories themselves did not clearly breach any ethical principles, but given that the coverage overall completely ignored the political dimensions, failed to explain why government lost the case, and never mentioned the widespread criticisms of government for pursuing the case, it does raise serious questions about the station’s commitment to “seek and express the truth” in its reporting. The failure to canvass the above information had the effect of suppressing criticisms of government and the traditional authorities.

Television Swazi TV’s coverage was similarly limited. The basic details of the court case were reported clearly, but there was no context, no mention of the political and legal issues and the significance and ramifications of the case were ignored. Sources: As with all event-based reporting the sources were restricted. Most reports were based on statements from the lawyers and judges. The traditional authorities opposing the burial were sourced once. The Mzikayise family itself was never sourced. Information: Coverage lacked context and key information was ignored. Reports often contained irrelevant and superficial details instead of providing more comprehensive information to help understand the political and legal issues. Crucial details such as the threat to the rule of law and the concerns of violence were never mentioned. Ethics: As with the SBIS coverage, there was no clear ethical breach in any particular story, but the use of very selective information in the overall coverage where vital information was ignored and criticisms of government not reported casts serious doubt on the commitment to seek the truth and report the story in full.

Print The majority of print coverage appeared in the Times, which ran three times as many stories as the Observer. The Swazi Observer’s chief editor wrote on 8 November that the paper had deliberately “restrained itself”xiv from commenting

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on the case because it was inappropriate to do so while it was still before the courts. But even in the week after the judgment was released the Swazi Observer continued to restrain from commenting. The Weekend Observer never ran a story on the case during the monitoring period, despite the climax of the case occurring during that same period. Sources: Most stories in the Observer did include multiple sources that represented both sides of the case, but a lot more space was given to the sources representing government and the traditional authorities. ‘Govt loses Mzikayise appeal’ (13 November 2007, page 3) and ‘Stop Mzikayise burial’ (16 November 2007, page 4) were the two main stories in the Observer’s coverage and they were both devoted almost entirely to the arguments of government and the traditional authorities with very little meaningful attention given to the opposing side. Had other stories in the Observer sourced the Mzikayise camp it might have balanced out, but these two stories were the only instances where the Mzikayise representatives were sourced and they weren’t given the chance to explain their side of the story and the legal merits of their case. The Times, on the other hand, relied on a much more diverse group of sources and balanced its sources where necessary. Times reporters didn’t just rely on the lawyers, judges and traditional authorities, but widened their pool to include political activists, community people who knew Mzikayise, the Law Society, the traditional Prime Minister and civil rights campaigners. The Times also demonstrated effort to seek comment from government. Information: The Times provided the most informative print coverage. Where the Observer tended to skirt around the key issues, the Times made an effort to address crucial aspects of the case such as the independence of the judiciary and the threat to the rule of law. The Times coverage included criticisms of the traditional authorities and of government and made some effort to explain the background and history of the case and contextualise the issues. Some reports made reference to a recent breakdown of the rule of law in Swaziland, the complication of the dual legal system and problems with the political system. But the Times did have some major gaps in its coverage. Most notably there was no substantial legal analysis and no effort to investigate, let alone query, unexplained or curious aspects of the story, such as the causes of Mzikayise’s eviction and other anomalies. The details of the court case were often poorly explained, with reporters relying too much on direct quotes from lawyers and judges without removing legal jargon. No report or

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commentary in the Times provided comprehensive legal analysis of the High Court judgment. The staff writers focused too much on event description, over-relying on summaries of public statements without synthesising and contextualising the information. The best analytical coverage came from guest writers and freelancers but these commentators were very weak on legal analysis. They confined themselves to moral commentary instead. The Swazi Observer’s reporting was much more superficial than the Times. The Observer avoided the key political and legal issues. It gave no analytical coverage and the information was sometimes selective. For example, a report just after the Supreme Court judgment (‘Govt loses Mzikayise appeal’ 13 November 2007, page 3) concentrated almost entirely on explaining the government’s justification for its appeal without explaining why the government lost the appeal or the merits of the opposing side’s argument. Ethics: The Times reporting was fair and ethical. But the Observer’s failure to report the story in full, balance its information and allow comment on the case raises questions about its editorial independence and commitment to reporting stories as truthfully as possible.

Conclusion The Times of Swaziland clearly provided the most comprehensive and balanced reporting on the Mzikayise case. However, its analytical coverage had significant weaknesses. The Observer’s coverage was superficial and sometimes partial towards government. Similarly the reporting on Swazi TV and SBIS was selective and uninformative.

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7.10

Reporting corruption

Since one of the main functions of the media is to act as a public watchdog to ensure accountability and transparency in government, it was pertinent to isolate corruption coverage for special analysis. Which medium provided the most coverage of corruption? Graph 15 compares the amount of attention given to corruption stories by each media house. Graph 15: Corruption coverage by medium (% of stories)

Swazi News Times Sunday Times of Swaziland Swazi TV Swazi Observer Weekend Observer SBIS 0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

The Times group of newspapers clearly provided more corruption coverage than any other medium. The Times had more than double the number of corruption stories than the other print medium, the Observer. It’s expected that the weekend newspapers (Swazi News and Times Sunday) would give the most corruption coverage because weekend publications have the scope to provide lengthier, in-depth investigative stories, which is often the type of story required when reporting on corruption. It’s noteworthy, then, that the Observer’s weekend publication had less corruption coverage than even the daily Observer. The main corruption stories that were covered across all media, to varying degrees, were an E50m fraud case, a drug procurement scandal, and a story of conflict of interest at the parastatal, Swaziland Electricity Company. The Times had, by far, the greatest diversity in the type of corruption stories. Times publications covered stories that were not reported in other media, such as stories about corruption at parastatals and government departments, and stories of individual MPs accused of corruption.

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SBIS, Swazi TV and the Observer exclusively covered corruption stories that were already in the public domain. That is, their corruption stories were based on court cases, public statements, discussions in parliament or details of parliamentary reports, rather than their own investigations. They merely reported on events/issues that were already public. The Times also relied heavily on stories that were already in the public domain, but occasionally they did demonstrate some effort to unearth corruption stories. Despite the Times making greater effort to provide diverse corruption coverage, their quality of reporting in corruption stories was not markedly better than the quality of corruption reporting in other media. In general, corruption reporting across the board was very poor. Corruption stories from all media were beset with the usual characteristics of political reporting. That is, they were most often superficial event summaries that missed vital information, failed to scrutinise the authorities and probe the real issue, provided little context, if any, and failed to seek diverse sources.

7.11

State vs private media

Did the private media in Swaziland provide more diverse, informative and balanced political reporting than the state media? When comparing the political coverage of SBIS, Swazi TV, the Observer and the Times, distinct patterns did emerge. SBIS and Swazi TV had the most in common. Their reporting was dominated by uninformative descriptions of government activities, cluttered with long sound bites from government ministers or representatives. Their coverage of politically sensitive stories was either non-existent or very bland and uncritical. And both stations had frequent and blatant examples of bias favouring government. The monitoring revealed that SBIS, in particular, did not display editorial independence in its political coverage. The Times, widely described as the only independent newspaper in the country, very clearly had the best political coverage. Compared to Swazi TV, SBIS and the Observer, the Times political coverage contained the:






Most diverse voices; Most informative and balanced coverage of politically sensitive stories; Most stories critical of government; Lowest percentage of reporting favouring government; Most reporting on corruption.

Although the Swazi Observer is owned by a private entity, it is commonly perceived to be a state newspaper. This study demonstrates why that perception exists. The Observer’s coverage of political stories was more akin to

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that of the state broadcasters, than that of the Times. The following characteristics were evident in the Observer’s political coverage:






Over-reliance on stories containing government sources only and avoidance of progressive voices; Very little coverage on politically sensitive stories; Avoidance of information critical of government; High percentage of biased stories favouring government; Very little reporting on corruption.

The monitoring revealed that the level of editorial independence at the Observer is questionable, despite the Observer’s status as a private publication.

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8

Conclusion

A typical political story in the Swazi media was a basic event description, reported by a male journalist, containing one male government source, and, if biased, favoured government. Coverage of government and political issues was largely superficial and uncritical and captured a limited range of views and voices. The breadth of content in political coverage was limited. Important political issues such as poverty, HIV/AIDS and democracy were marginalized because political reporting was reactive, that is, it was largely determined by what government said or did. Most political stories were simple descriptions of government statements or activities. Thus rather than questioning the government’s agenda and trying to reshape it, the media’s political coverage generally reinforced the government’s agenda. The media across the board displayed a chronic lack of information and analysis. The focus on describing events rather than examining issues was a key reason for this lack of information, as well as the over-reliance on single-sourced stories and the failure to research, ask the pertinent questions and contextualise the story. Almost every instance of biased political reporting, regardless of the medium, favoured government. Single-sourcing also proved to be the root cause of much of the unbalanced political reporting. The tendency to base stories on one government source increased the risk of biased reporting that favoured government. Gender balance was sorely lacking in political coverage. Women’s voices were almost non-existent. Political stories were almost exclusively based on the voices and opinions of men. The dominance of government voices also severely limited the diversity of views expressed in political reporting. Again, the habit of single-sourcing meant there was little effort to seek out the voices of ordinary citizens, expert analysts and those who might oppose the government view. The media’s tendency to focus on government voices only was the key contributing factor to the amount of unethical reporting. Telling only the government view sometimes resulted in very subjective reporting where the media simply acted as a mouthpiece for government. Comparing political coverage across the different media revealed that the best political reporting was found in the Times publications. Notably, the Times reporting had the least ethical violations and the least bias. And yet the Times

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did fall short in many areas. Most obviously the Times did not sufficiently contextualise political stories, often failed to provide diverse voices and lacked depth of information and analysis. Classic features of state media reporting were clearly evident in the political coverage of SBIS and Swazi TV. Most stories were very simplistic descriptions of government projects and policies, concentrating on the positive aspects with no critique or opposing comment. The Observer, too, had a tendency to focus on government views, avoid scrutiny and criticism of government and gave scant coverage of politically sensitive stories. With such a chronic lack of diversity and context across all political coverage, the media failed to foster meaningful political debate and promote critical thinking about government and political issues.

8.1

Behind the findings

Weaknesses in the media’s coverage are often blamed on lack of skills and experience among media practitioners. And indeed, many features of political reporting revealed in this study demonstrate that the media need to sharpen specific skills. Journalists need to improve their information gathering and learn to test the information they collect. The ability to research, look for verification and/or points of opposition, and ask the most probing and pertinent questions was rarely evident. Journalists must do better at recognising a source’s bias and work to balance that bias rather than let their story fall prey to it. They must learn how to provide context and analysis – the why and the how - while remaining objective. Improvement in these areas would ensure the media do a better job of getting behind government spin and holding the authorities to account – perhaps the two most important requirements of strong political reporting. But beyond the media itself, there are some crucial aspects of the environment in which the media operate that have a particular bearing on the quality of political journalism. The restricted media industry limits the scope and effectiveness of political reporting. As this study demonstrates, the government monopoly on broadcasting works very well for government, providing it with a mouthpiece to promote and justify its interests. But this does not work well for media consumers. Government’s continued hold over SBIS and Swazi TV and its failure to admit commercial and community operators into the market leaves media consumers with no source of truly independent political reporting on radio or TV.

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The lack of diversity in the print sector also deprives media consumers. As we’ve seen, when it comes to the quality of political reporting the Times has little real competition from the Observer. This effectively leaves consumers with just one source of political journalism that has no links to government, but a source that is probably weakened by the lack of real competition. The restricted political environment also weakens political journalism. The political system in Swaziland does not cater for political parties. As a result the government effectively has no opposition and there are no clear groupings based on ideological beliefs. The government itself does not put forward clear positions on political matters. What bearing does this have on political reporting? First, it means that when the media relies so heavily on government sources they are often disseminating one homogenous voice. Whereas if government included an opposition and other political parties, then relying almost exclusively on government sources would not be so problematic as it would, in fact, provide a multiplicity of views which in turn provides balance in reporting. Second, the lack of clear ideological camps in government means there is little meaningful debate within the political sphere itself and that makes it more difficult for the media to generate political debate. There are two other notable aspects of the political environment that can restrict the media’s political reporting. The first is that information sharing between government and the public is extremely poor. There is no obligation on government to proactively disclose certain types of information that the media ought to have ready access to. This obviously hampers the media’s ability to report important political stories. The second aspect is that people in public office generally do not accept that they ought to tolerate a higher level of scrutiny and criticism than the ordinary citizen. This is especially evident when politicians demand apologies from the media, take retributive action of some sort or file defamation suits when the media reports critically about their public activities. This can discourage the media from reporting certain stories and encourages uncritical reporting.

8.2

Recommendations

I

Strengthen capacity of media practitioners


Provide skills training to working journalists and editors on areas such as conducting research, fact checking, interviewing sources, balancing stories and adding context and analysis to stories.




Provide education programs for the media on political issues and matters of governance.

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II

III

Diversify the broadcasting industry and introduce public broadcasting


Enact legislation that enshrines the three-tier system of broadcasting (public, commercial and community);




Establish an independent broadcasting regulator;




Transform state broadcasters into public service broadcasters that are legally protected from political interference;




Provide skills training to broadcast journalists on the role and ethos of public service broadcasting.

Introduce effective self-regulation mechanisms


Establish an active self-regulatory body to encourage more ethical and fair reporting.




Inform the public of the role of the self-regulatory body and their avenues of complaint.

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Appendix 1 The Swaziland Media Industry Medium Radio

Name Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Services (SBIS)

Voice of the Church (VOC) Television

Swazi TV

Channel Swazi Newspaper Times of Swaziland (daily) Swazi News (weekly) Times Sunday (weekly) Swazi Observer (daily) Weekend Observer (weekly)

Magazine

The Nation (monthly)

Kaleidoscope (bi-monthly)

Description State-owned and controlled national broadcaster. SBIS operates as a government department under the Ministry of Public Service and Information Independent religious broadcaster. VOC is licensed to broadcast religious content only. Semi-independent national broadcaster. Swazi TV is registered as a parastatal. Private broadcaster operated by a member of the royal family. Independent publication owned and published by the private company, African Echo Pty Ltd. Owned by Tibiyo TakaNgwane, a private company that operates as a trust fund for the King. Though technically an independent newspaper, the Observer is largely viewed as a state publication. Independent publication owned and published by Swaziland Independent Publishers Pty Ltd. Independent publication owned and published by Knotell Co. Pty Ltd.

Note: There are other small privately owned print players that publish sporadically, such as, weekly sports newspapers and special interest magazines.

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Appendix 2 Adherence to journalism ethics is measured using the following nine ethical principles. 1. Seek and express the truth. 2. Be independent and objective. 3. Minimise harm. 4. Children are afforded special protection. 5. Avoid stereotypes. 6. Be gender proactive and consider the gender angles to all stories. 7. Violence against women and child abuse are fundamental human rights abuses. 8. Respect and engage with cultural and sexual practices. 9. Be aware of the HIV/AIDS dimensions to gender-based violence

and child abuse stories.

The Media Monitoring Project is a human rights NGO based in South Africa specializing in media content research. ii The selected radio programs could only be monitored every second day for this period due to technical constraints. iii The English bulletins are direct translations of the siSwati versions. iv News Diet Study, MISA Swaziland 2006 v News Diet Study, MISA Swaziland 2006 vi A source is a person or document that is directly or indirectly quoted in the story. vii News Diet Study, MISA Swaziland 2006 viii Graph 7 does not include secondary sources, such as parliamentary reports and court documents. Secondary sources accounted for almost 30% of all sources in political stories. ix There are over 15 categories including government, head of state, traditional authorities, civil society, political parties, unions, funders and academia. x Monitors can only record one ethical violation per story, so for stories that violated multiple principles only the most egregious violation was recorded. xi Government here refers to all governing organs, that is, the legislature, head of state, traditional authorities, parastatals, the judiciary as well as all government departments. xii The Times has two weekend publications, while the Observer has one. xiii The lead story was about government’s poverty reduction plan. xiv ‘Mzikayise case: acid test for justice’, Swazi Observer, 8 November 2007, page 4 i

© MISA Swaziland 2008

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