Members of the media fraternity have committed themselves to ensuring a fair, accurate and balanced coverage of all  political parties and contenders in the forthcoming 2011 general elections. At a roundtable discussion organised by the African Centre for Media Excellence (ACME), leaders in the media fraternity agreed to set themselves guidelines for covering the electoral process before, during and after the elections.

During the last general elections in 2006, a number of media organizations faced serious accusations of bias as some candidates were seen to get better access to media coverage by virtue of their status or postures. It was noted that the state-media largely favoured the incumbent, President Yoweri Museveni, and accorded little attention to his rivals. 

A study titled Uganda Media Coverage of the 2006 Elections by the Democracy Monitoring Group (Dem-Group) found out that in the presidential race, the leading newspapers, both state-owned and private, gave President Museveni around 40% coverage (in space and quotations), while key challenger Kizza Besigye received around 27%, Ssebaana Kizito 16%, Miria Obote 11% and 6% went to Abed Bwanika.

Dem-Group also noted that the state-owned UBC TV was decidedly unbalanced giving Museveni 88.5% of the prime news time. UBC Radio favoured Museveni with 61% of coverage time.

Rules
In an attempt to improve the coverage this time round, media executives agreed to scrutinize all the information presented to newsrooms by the candidates so as not to feed the electorate on un-researched and uncorroborated information or not to appear to be biased towards certain candidates.

Media houses have further agreed not to run or air opinion polls conducted by political parties and candidates to avoid promoting the interests of particular parties. It was resolved that an opinion poll must bear the source of information, who carried out the survey and the sponsor of the exercise for it to be published or aired.  

"The media, as a matter of principal, has a duty to churn balanced and accurate information and accord citizens the right to know what is going on or the agenda of different candidates and parties so that they can make an informed decision on who to vote for basing on a point of knowledge," stressed Dr. Peter Mwesige, the Executive Director of African Centre for Media Excellence. 

"Denying the electorate knowledge about candidates and what they stand for, by choosing to run what politicians give you without verifying it is to expose the electorate to manipulations of various political interests," he argued.

The media finds itself at the cross roads of the party candidates or the political parties wanting to present their messages freely without distortion or manipulation on the one hand, and the voters wanting to receive full and accurate information on the other.

On the other hand the media strives to retain the right to question and criticize the government, the candidates and the competing parties in an environment free from censorship, intimidation or political pressures.

"Election coverage practice and standards are based on the right to freedom of expression and non-discrimination as well as the right to political participation," says Mwesige. He contends that election reporting is part of political journalism which aims at engendering public debate by collecting and disseminating truthful, unbiased information on the activities of political parties and candidates to the public.

If attained, unbiased, informed coverage offers the public the opportunity to express their views on the candidates and their programmes and make informed choices.

Although the Supreme Court has annulled the age-old law of sedition that had seen several journalists behind bars and others still facing charges of the same crime, government is yet to pass another draconian law, which critics say is meant to muzzle the media, under the press and journalists act (amendment bill) 2010.

Given the hostile environment, it still remains to be seen how journalists will cover and report on critical fundamental issues that would inform and shape the electoral process.
"For instance everybody knows that this government is corrupt and most government officials have got rot under their beds. Analyzing such issues would call for serious reprisals from the corrupt agents," contends Mwesige.     

Moses Nuwagaba, deputy spokesperson of UPC, who was present at the roundtable discussion, expressed disdain at government functionaries that force private media owners to deny opposition politicians access to their TV and radio stations with threats to switching them off air.

To these set of allegations, the NRM deputy spokesperson Ofwono Opondo countered that the NRM as a party has never issued a directive to media outlets to deny some opposition politicians access to radio and TV.

Opondo instead suggested that the government, through the ministry of the presidency, should document a circular to all Resident District Commissioners (RDCs) instructing them that they have no mandate to stop opposition politicians from appearing on private TV and FM stations.

Facilitation of reporters by the various political parties and candidates became another sticking issue at the roundtable with participants demanding that political parties and candidates facilitate reporters assigned to cover their campaign trails, though noting that it is the duty of media managements to facilitate their journalists.

The members also advocated for security of journalists by the candidates involved to enable the journalists do their work without apprehension, like has been the case in the previous elections.

Though the represented media-outlets [including state-owned] were enthusiastic about the set-guidelines, they face a challenge of proving that they are non-partisan in their coverage of the electoral process and that they do not place pecuniary interests far and above professionalism. blog comments powered by Disqus

< Prev		Next >