Rudolf Gaiseb
The coverage of opposition political parties by news media in Namibia has increased from 59% to 66% in July and August.
This was revealed by the second elections media monitoring report that was launched by the media ombudsman of Namibia, John Nakuta.
Monitoring was conducted between 20 July and 20 August this year.
He hinted that although the ruling party, Swapo, received the biggest chunk of the coverage in the last couple of months from print, broadcast, online and social media, opposition parties have become more active with campaigns, rallies and debates on issues that matter to the public.
“There is still a lack of agenda-setting by political parties, and this is mainly attributed to the fact that during the July and August reporting, political parties had not released their manifestos. However, we are hopeful that subsequent reports will hopefully reveal more focused coverage in terms of policy proposals, agenda and proposals, given the release of manifestos witnessed already from some parties,” he said.
Nakuta stated that media outlets, intentionally or unintentionally, may exhibit biases in their coverage of electoral events, favouring certain political parties, candidates or viewpoints.
Compared to the last report, he said that electoral reporting has increased from 2 124 election-related statements (mentions in news reports) from June to July to 5 655 statements from July to August.
Not surprisingly, Swapo tops the chart with 1 929 statements, which equates to 32% of the pie.
The ruling party received the most coverage from the New Era, The Namibian and the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC).
The party received 56% neutral statements, 38% positive and 5% negative statements.
The Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) only tasted 6% of the party coverage pie between June and July, and subsequently increased to 19% in August.
In the same period, PDM was largely covered by The Namibian, followed by New Era and Namibian Sun.
It received 67% neutral coverage, 29% negative and 4% positive statements.
In contrast, the news coverage of Namibia Economic Freedom Fighters (NEFF) increased to 692 statements, compared to 277 stated in the first media monitoring report.
NEFF was mainly covered by Namibian Sun, followed by The Namibian and the Afrikaans daily, Republikein.
Meanwhile, Affirmative Repositioning (AR) and the Landless People’s Movement (LPM) lagged in coverage.
They received 8% of the coverage between July and August. However, AR had 464 election-related statements, and LPM had 461.
The source of LPM’s coverage mostly stemmed from New Era, The Namibian and NBC.
The National Unity Democratic Organisation (Nudo) received only 456 statements in the period in question. During the reporting period, the smaller parties continue to receive very little of the news coverage pie. Nakuta is hopeful for equal coverage of all political parties, as campaigns are ongoing, and the rest of the parties are yet to launch their manifestos.