HOW DID THE MEDIA COVER THE 2016 GENERAL ELECTION ?

HOW DID THE MEDIA COVER THE 2016 GENERAL ELECTION ? A SUMMARY REPORT BY MISA ZAMBIA AND MEDIA LIAISON COMMITTEE

1. Executive Summary MISA Zambia in collaboration with the Media Liaison Committee received funding from the BBC Media Action with the support of the Swedish International Development Agency to undertake a 2016 media monitoring project over the election period. The project monitored how the media in Zambia covered the 2016 general elections at four different points in time from April 2016 to October 2016 – before the campaign period, during the campaign period, over the actual election period and post-elections. This report is a summary of the findings for the first three of these periods focusing on how the media covered the elections. The project aimed at assessing how media outlets in Zambia performed in regards to accepted election coverage standards and basic journalism values. Specifically, the project monitored: I. The key themes covered II. The coverage of political parties and the nature of coverage III. The editorial content and quality The 21 media outlets that were monitored included two TV stations, ten radio stations, four newspapers and five websites. In terms of ownership, four are publicly owned, twelve are privately owned and five are community owned. The outlets were selected mainly because they were the most watched, read and listened to among the media outlets in Zambia meaning that they have a large public reach. A total of 2,702 election-related stories were coded and analysed in the four-month period covered here. Of these stories, 51.1% of the stories were in the private media, 37.1% in the public media and only 11.1% in the community media outlets. In terms of specific media outlet, the print media had 52.3%, radio 26.2%, online 13.1% and TV 8.3%. In relation to the top themes covered throughout this period, election campaigns, electoral process issues and election related violence received the most coverage. The referendum was barely covered. Furthermore, socio-economic issues received little attention, although the community media did give more prominence to these issues. Community media also tended to have less coverage on election related violence. The overall findings throughout the monitoring period suggest that media had provided limited content to enable the electorate to make decisions as to who to vote for based on party positions and ideologies. In terms of political party coverage, the PF was given undue prominence as overall it received 45.7% of the coverage, whilst their closest rival, the UPND received half of what the PF received at 26.4%. The other political parties received minimal coverage, with MMD receiving 4.4% and FDD 1|Page

receiving 3.6% whilst the rest of the other political parties only received between 0.1% to 2.4% of the coverage. This bias was slightly more extreme in the public media, as PF received 49.7% of the coverage, whilst the UPND only got 21%, MMD 4.2%, FDD 3.5% and other political parties in between 0.2 to 1.9% of the coverage. The picture was marginally better in the private media, with the one notable variation being the only TV outlet – Muvi TV, where more coverage was given to the main opposition party. Overall, the private media covered the PF at 44.6% whereas the UPND, the closest rival received 29.5%. MMD received 4.8% and FDD 3.7% while other political parties received in between 0.1 to 2.7% coverage. In contrast, the community radio showed a better balance of coverage of the two leading parties, with UPND receiving 38.2% of the coverage and the PF getting 35.5%, whilst other political parties received between 3.6% to 4.6%. The findings in relation to editorial quality of the stories showed that from the 21 media houses monitored, only three mainly used multiple sourcing, with the rest relying on single sourcing. These are, Muvi TV (64.3% of its stories had multiple sources), Times of Zambia (50.5% had multiple sources) and Zambia Daily Mail (49.2% had multiple points of view). ZNBC TV1 had the highest number of stories with single points of view at 75.3%, followed by the Daily Nation at 69.9% and the Post at 53.2%. A disappointing finding is that all of the stories captured from online media and radio across public, community and private radio were not balanced and have been primarily based on a single point of view, leaving them more prone to bias. In terms of gender balance, from all the 21 media outlets being monitored, females received 26.9% coverage as opposed to their male counterpart who received an over whelming 73.1% coverage. From these findings, the recommendations are that:  Issue based reporting and the provision of information to enable the electorate to make an informed choice needs to improve ahead of future elections.  Significant steps need to be made to ensure equal and fair coverage to all political parties, and to reduce the systematic bias of reporting given to the ruling party particularly in the public media. This needs to be appropriately monitored by an independent body with the mandate to oversee all media in Zambia.  The Electoral Commission of Zambia was largely silent throughout the campaign period on breaches of the media code of ethics. They need to play a much stronger role (in line with their mandate) to caution and warn media houses which are breaking the code.  Similarly, significant steps need to be made to ensure equal and fair coverage of both male and female candidates, so as to reduce the systematic bias of giving undue prominence to male candidates.  Media needs to improve in its professional ethics and standards to ensure that where possible and appropriate, stories have multiple sources to ensure a diversity of views and balanced reporting.

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2. Introduction This media monitoring report sums up the media monitoring that took place from all the work related to media monitoring from 18 April to 19 August 2016, which covered the pre-campaign, campaign and election period. It is a result of a joint media monitoring project of 21 media outlets undertaken by MISA Zambia in collaboration with Media Liaison Committee (MLC). The aim of the project was to assess how media outlets in Zambia perform in regards to accepted election coverage standards and basic journalism values. Specifically, the project monitored: I. II. III.

The key themes covered The coverage of political parties and the nature of coverage The editorial content and quality

This report is the final report in a series of five reports that had been produced. The first looked at the pre-campaigning period, the second at the campaigning period, the third focused on the election period and the fourth focused on the post-election period. This final report is a summation report focusing on the first three data collection periods. During the four-month period, a total of 2,702 stories from a total of 21 media outlets were identified as ‘election related stories’ and coded for analysis. This report, like the previous ones, focuses on public media given its mandate to inform the public, whilst also highlighting key findings in the private and community media.

3. Methodology The 21 media outlets monitored were two TV stations, ten radio stations, four newspapers and five websites. In terms of ownership, four are publicly owned, twelve are privately owned and five are community owned. The outlets were selected mainly because they were the most watched, read and listened to among the media outlets meaning that they have a large public reach. In the pre-campaign, campaign and election period, to be included for analysis, stories had to be categorised as election related through the two step definition below: Step 1: To qualify as an election-related story, one of the following words must be used in the story: Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ), the name of any political party, the name of any political party official (Including; parliamentarians, councillors, mayors), or the name of any political party candidate (including reference to current President). Step 2: Requires that each story passing Step 1 must also feature the words August 11 or August Seat or August polls or public office or 50 plus 1 or ‘election(s)’ or ‘electoral’ or ‘campaign(s)’ vote or votes in 2016. If a story passes both Step 1 and Step 2 then it shall qualify as an election-related story and be included in the sample.

4. Findings 4.1 Ownership of Media Houses

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Figure 1: Media Outlet n=2702 8%

13%

53% 26%

TV

Online

Radio

Print

Print media (newspapers) covered slightly over half of the stories identified as election related content during this period as shown in Figure 1. Zambians who rely on TV and online media for news and information will have thus seen a lot less election related content. Figure 2: Ownership status n=2072 11.1%

51.8%

37.1%

Private

Public

Community

Private media outlets covered almost half of all election related content captured during the aggregated period as shown in Figure 2. Only a small amount of the election related stories were captured in the community media. This means that for people without access to private media, their exposure to election related content from the media will have been primarily via the limited number of stories which appeared in the public media.

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4.2 Key themes covered Figure 3: Top ten Key themes covered n=4155 Election Campaigns

19.2%

Electoral process issues

16.0%

Key themes

Election related violence

12.9%

Judiciary and legal affairs

6.3%

Election Malpractice

4.9%

Personal attacks on candidates (not insult)

4.3%

Infrastructure

3.5%

Conflict resolution

3.4%

Labour issues

Defections from political party to another

2.7% 2.1%

The choice of themes or topics the media decides to cover during an election plays a key role in assisting the electorate to make informed choices during polling day. Throughout the overall period monitored, the focus of the media has been on election campaigns, electoral process issues, and election related violence as shown in Figure 3. There has been limited content on political parties’ manifestos and key socio-economic issues to inform the electorate. The referendum was barely covered and did not feature in the top 10 overall themes. 4.2.1 Key themes covered by the public media The dominance in the coverage of the election campaigns, electoral processes and election related violence was more pronounced in the public media. This varied slightly with each period, with election violence receiving more coverage in the pre-campaigning period, election campaigns being covered more in the campaigning period and electoral process issues featuring more in the election period. Socio-economic issues such as agriculture, party manifestoes and the referendum received less than 5% of the coverage, which was a pattern across the three periods monitored. Figure 4: Top ten key themes covered by ZNBC TV 1 n=270 Election Campaigns

23.0%


13.7%

Key Themes


13.3%


5.6%

Infrastructure

5.6%

Agriculture Political party alliances

3.3% 3.0%

Conflict resolution

2.6%

Manifesto

2.6%

Referudum

2.6%

In terms of the topics covered by ZNBC TV1 (Figure 4), although the prominence given to election campaigns fluctuated, overall, it was the most covered theme, followed by electoral process issues and election related violence. Despite the referendum and manifestos being featured in the top 10 5|Page

themes, they were the two lowest ranking. Agriculture and infrastructure were covered slightly more. Other significant issues such as poverty alleviation, health and corruption were not amongst the ten most covered themes overall. Figure 5: Top ten key themes covered by Times of Zambia n=511 Election Campaigns

20.4%


15.9%

Key themes


11.9%

Infrastructure

8.0%

Judiciary and legal affairs Election Malpractice

4.1% 3.5%


3.1%

Labour issues

3.1%

Agriculture

2.9%

Manifesto

2.7%

The Times of Zambia (Figure 5) equally focused on election campaigns, electoral process issues and election related violence. The referendum did not feature in the top 10. Like with ZNBC TV1, the main socio-economic issue covered was infrastructure, whilst other such issues included labour issues, agriculture and overall manifestos. Figure 6: Top ten key themes covered by Zambia Daily Mail n=512 Election Campaigns

21.3%


17.6%

Key themes


15.4%

Infrastructure

6.6%


4.3%

Labour issues

4.3%


3.1%


2.9%

Defections from political party to another Endorsement

2.5% 2.1%

The same pattern is repeated in the Zambia Daily Mail (Figure 6), with election campaigns, electoral process issues and election related violence being the most covered. Fewer socio-economic issues made it in the top 10, apart from infrastructure, which featured third, and labour issues.

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Key themes

Figure 7: Top 10 key themes covered by ZNBC Radio 2 n=262 Election Campaigns Election related violence Electoral process issues Infrastructure Judiciary and legal affairs Conflict resolution Political party alliances Running mate clause Manifesto Defections from political party to another Election Malpractice Agriculture Referudum

20.2% 16.4% 11.8% 6.5% 5.7% 4.6% 4.2% 3.1% 3.1% 2.3% 2.3% 1.9% 1.9%

There was a slight change with ZNBC Radio 2 (Figure 7) in that the order of the top three themes was reversed between election violence and electoral process issues. Again this main socio-economic issue covered was infrastructure, whist manifestos, agriculture and the referendum received limited coverage. 4.2.2 Key themes covered by selected private media In the private media, the same topics of election campaigns, election related violence and electoral process issues featured most prominently. However, more private media houses (notably the Post and Daily Nation) had significant coverage on election malpractice, which received less coverage in the public media. Overall, socio-economic issues, like agriculture and labour issues, received more coverage than in public media but this varied from one media outlet to the other.

Key themes

Figure 8: Top 17 key themes covered by MUVI TV n=109 Election Campaigns Election related violence Electoral process issues Judiciary and legal affairs Running mate clause Conflict resolution Other specify Defections from political party to another Agriculture Corruption or anti-corruption Election Malpractice Personal attacks on candidates (not insult) 50 plus 1 Poverty alleviation Endorsement Welfare Political party alliances

25.7%

11.0% 7.3% 6.4% 5.5% 4.6% 4.6% 3.7% 3.7% 3.7% 1.8% 1.8% 1.8% 1.8% 1.8% 1.8% 0.9%

Muvi TV focused on election campaigns, election related violence and electoral process issues as shown in Figure 8. A notable difference is that Muvi TV had more coverage of the running mate clause, agriculture, corruption and anti-corruption, welfare, 50 + 1 and poverty alleviation. Other issues such the referendum, education and health were not featured the key themes covered. 7|Page

Key themes

Figure 9: Top 10 key themes covered by the Post n=411 Election Campaigns Electoral process issues Election related violence Personal attacks on candidates (not insult) Election Malpractice Judiciary and legal affairs Labour issues Conflict resolution Political party alliances Corruption or anti-corruption Manifesto Other specify

16.3% 14.1% 12.4% 10.7% 9.7% 5.6% 3.4% 2.7% 2.4% 2.4% 2.2% 2.2%

Like the public media outlets, overall, the Post Newspaper focused on election campaigns, electoral process issues and election related violence as shown in Figure 9. However, a notable difference as compared to other media outlets is that personal attacks on candidates (not insult), and election malpractice received more coverage than in the other media outlets. Figure 10: Top 10 key themes covered by The Daily Nation n=614 Electoral process issues

21.50%

Election Campaigns

16.9%


12.4%

Key themes


6.0%


5.4%


4.9%

Labour issues Conflict resolution

4.2% 3.3%


2.3%

Infrastructure

2.3%

Manifesto

2.0%

As with other media, the most covered themes throughout the period for the Daily Nation (Figure 10) were electoral process issues, election campaigns and election related violence. In terms of socioeconomic issues, infrastructure received less prominence than in the public media - a trend reflected across all private media outlets. Other issues also received little prominence, with only labour issues and manifestos featuring in the top 10. 4.2.4 Key themes covered by commercial radio stations The two commercial radio stations monitored, Hot FM and Breeze FM, like public media, tended to feature primarily election campaigns, election related violence and electoral process issues throughout the election monitoring period. Coverage of other important issues like labour issues and party manifestos was generally low and issues such as health, education, infrastructure and social

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security received little or no coverage. This is shown in Figure 11 below for Hot FM and Figure 12 for Breeze FM. Figure 11: Top 10 key issues covered by Hot FM n=108 Election Campaigns

22.2%


17.6%

Key themes


10.2%


6.5%


5.6%

Political party alliances

4.6%

Conflict resolution

4.6%

Labour issues

4.6%


1.9%

Manifesto

1.9%

Key themes

Figure 12: Top 10 key themes covered by Breeze FM n=28 Election Campaigns

16.7%


16.7%


12.5%

Political party alliances

12.5%

Nominations

8.3%


8.3%


4.2%

Running mate clause

4.2%

Infrastructure

4.2%

Corruption or anti-corruption

4.2%

4.2.5 Key themes covered by community radio stations In community media, a notable difference is that electoral process issues generally received more coverage than election campaigns, unlike in the public and private media outlets. The only outlet that showed any difference in the top three was Liseli, where judiciary and legal affairs ranked third and election-related violence fourth. Although during the election period, marginally more prominence was given to issue-based reporting in the community media than in the private or public media, this was not reflected when the pre-campaigning, campaigning and election period were aggregated. Infrastructure, like in the private media, received less prominence than in the public media.

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Figure 13: Top 10 key themes covered by Icengelo n=118 Electoral process issues

22.9%

Election Campaigns

20.3%

Key themes


17.8%


5.9%


5.1%

Nominations

4.2%

Manifesto

3.4%

Conflict resolution

2.5%

Infrastructure

2.5%

Labour issues

1.7%

The themes covered by Icengelo (Figure 13) are similar to that of public and private media in the top three themes covered and less prominence given to key issues, such as labour issues, party manifestos and infrastructure and other issues such as poverty alleviation, agriculture and health not featuring. Figure 14: Top 10 key themes covered by Liseli n=167 Electoral process issues

29.9%

Election Campaigns

14.4%

Key themes


7.8%


5.4%

Conflict resolution

5.4%

Nominations Political party alliances

4.8% 4.2%


3.0%

Infrastructure

3.0%


2.4%

Compared to other media outlets, Radio Liseli, covered election related violence less as shown in Figure 14. However, socio-economic issues received little attention, with only infrastructure featuring in the top 10.

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Figure 15: Top 10 themes covered by Kabangabanga n=60 Election Campaigns

25.0%


13.3%

Key themes


8.3%

Poverty alleviation

6.7%

Agriculture

5.0%

Referudum

5.0%

Running mate clause

3.3%

Conflict resolution

3.3%

Nominations

3.3%


3.3%

For Kabangabanga radio station, the same three themes were given the most airtime as shown in Figure 15. However, poverty alleviation, agriculture issues and the referendum received more coverage than in other community media outlets and public and private media outlets. Figure 16: Top 10 key themes covered by Mano n=81 Electoral process issues

30.9%

Election Campaigns

14.8%

Key themes


9.9%

Judiciary and legal affairs Conflict resolution

7.4% 4.9%


3.7%


3.7%

Manifesto

3.7%

Agriculture

3.7%


2.5%

For Radio Mano the same three themes dominated the coverage as reflected in Figure 16. Only two socio-economic issues featured in the top 10, namely party manifestos and agriculture. 4.3 Balance of Coverage This section of the report presents findings of how the media covered the political parties. It thus gives insights into which political parties or party received more coverage than others, and whether this is connected to ownership.

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Figure 17: Political parties covered=3419

Percentage

45.7% 26.4% 10.1%

4.4% 3.6% 2.4% 1.5% 1.2% 1.0% 0.8% 0.8% 0.7% 0.6% 0.5% 0.4% 0.1%

Political party

Figure 17 above shows that PF was given undue coverage across all media outlets as nearly half of the coverage was dedicated to it. UPND, which was second, was covered slightly more than half what PF was covered. 4.3.1 The balance of coverage by type of media outlet Figure 18: Political party coverage by Public Media n=1210 PF/PF party official

49.7%

UPND/UPND party official

21.0%

No specific political party MMD/ MMD party official FDD/ FDD party official

Political party

Other opposition political party/official

9.8% 4.2% 3.5% 1.9%

Independent candidate

1.7%

Rainbow Party/ party official

1.6%

UNIP

1.5%

UPP/UPP party official

1.2%

Green/Green party official

1.2%

NAREP/NAREP party official

0.7%

PAC/PAC party official

0.7%

DF/ DF party official

0.6%

DA/DA party official

0.6%

Heritage party (HP)/party official

0.2%

Figure 18 above shows that PF was given undue coverage across all public media outlets as nearly half of the coverage was dedicated to it. UPND, the closest rival, received less than half of what PF received reflecting a systematic bias in coverage towards the ruling party by the public media.

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Figure 19: Political party coverage by Private Media n=1851 PF/PF party official

44.6% 29.5%

No specific political party

Political party

FDD/ FDD party official

Rainbow Party/ party official UNIP PAC/PAC party official DA/DA party official UPP/UPP party official

9.2% 4.8% 3.7% 2.7% 1.3% 0.9% 0.8% 0.7% 0.6% 0.3% 0.3% 0.3% 0.2% 0.1%

Like in the public media, Figure 19 shows that PF was given undue coverage across all private media outlets. However, it was still significantly less than the public media.

Political party

Figure 20: Political party coverage by Community media n=358 PF/PF party official UPND/UPND party official No specific political party FDD/ FDD party official MMD/ MMD party official Other opposition political party/official Rainbow Party/ party official UNIP Independent candidate NAREP/NAREP party official DF/ DF party official UPP/UPP party official PAC/PAC party official Green/Green party official DA/DA party official

37.7% 28.5% 15.9% 3.1% 2.8% 2.8% 2.2% 2.0% 2.0% 0.8% 0.6% 0.6% 0.6% 0.3% 0.30%

Similarly, PF was the most covered party in the community media as shown in Figure 20. However, community media covered other parties more than both the public media and the private media.

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4.3.2 The coverage of political parties by selected public media outlets

Political party

Figure 21: Political party covered by ZNBC TV 1 n=226 PF/PF party official UPND/UPND party official No specific political party MMD/ MMD party official FDD/ FDD party official UPP/UPP party official Rainbow Party/ party official UNIP Other opposition political party/official Green/Green party official PAC/PAC party official NAREP/NAREP party official DA/DA party official Independent candidate Heritage party (HP)/party official

46.9% 16.8% 12.8% 4.4% 4.0% 3.5% 2.2% 2.2% 1.3% 1.3% 1.3% 0.9% 0.9% 0.9% 0.4%

Figure 21 above shows that ZNBC TV1 covered a wide range of political parties but to a very limited extent, with PF receiving by far the most coverage, with its nearest rival – UPND – receiving less than a third of this amount of coverage. Figure 22: Political party covered by Times of Zambia n=392 PF/PF party official

51.8%


22.7%

No specific political party MMD/ MMD party official

Political party

FDD/ FDD party official Other opposition political party/official Independent candidate UNIP

7.1% 3.8% 3.1% 2.3% 2.30% 2.0%


1.3%


1.0%


1.0%


0.5%


0.5%


0.5%

A systematic bias in public media was again shown in the Times of Zambia (Figure 22) as the ruling party received more than half the coverage, whilst UNPD got less than half of this. The other political parties received minimal coverage.

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Political party

Figure 23: Political party covered by Zambia Daily Mail n=401 PF/PF party official UPND/UPND party official No specific political party MMD/ MMD party official FDD/ FDD party official Rainbow Party/ party official NAREP/NAREP party official Other opposition political party/official UPP/UPP party official Green/Green party official PAC/PAC party official DA/DA party official Independent candidate UNIP

51.1% 25.2% 10.7% 3.7% 2.2% 1.2% 1.0% 1.0% 0.7% 0.7% 0.7% 0.7% 0.5% 0.2%

As with the Times of Zambia, the Zambia Daily Mail gave PF undue coverage compared to any other political party. UPND received half of what the PF received as shown in Figure 23.

Political party

Figure 24: Political party covered by ZNBC Radio 2 n=191 PF/PF party official UPND/UPND party official No specific political party FDD/ FDD party official MMD/ MMD party official Other opposition political party/official Independent candidate Rainbow Party/ party official UNIP Green/Green party official NAREP/NAREP party official DF/ DF party official UPP/UPP party official Heritage party (HP)/party official PAC/PAC party official

45.5% 13.6% 9.9% 6.3% 5.8% 3.7% 3.7% 2.1% 2.1% 2.1% 1.6% 1.6% 1.0% 0.5% 0.5%

This pattern is mirrored in ZNBC Radio 2, were again there was a systematic bias in covering the ruling party more than any other party as shown in Figure 24. UPND received less than a third of this coverage, whilst the other parties were given significantly less.

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4.3.3 The coverage of political parties by selected private media outlets Figure 25: Political parties covered by MUVI TV n=110 UPND/UPND party official

38.2%

Political party

PF/PF party official

35.5%


14.5%

MMD/ MMD party official

4.5%


3.6%


3.6%

Figure 25 above shows that throughout the pre-campaign, campaign and election period, Muvi TV gave slightly more coverage to UPND than any other political party with the PF receiving 3% of what the UPND got. The only other parties that were covered were MMD and FDD. Figure 26: Political party covered by The Post n=336 PF/PF party official

55.4%


21.7%

Political party


6.8%


5.4%


3.6%


3.0%


2.4%


1.2%

UNIP

0.6%

The Post Newspaper, on the other hand, gave undue prominence to the PF, with UPND being covered less than half of this as shown in figure 26. Other political parties were barely covered or not covered at all.

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Figure 27: Political party covered by Daily Nation n=522 PF/PF party official

45.2%


32.6%


5.2%


Political party

FDD/ FDD party official Other opposition political party/official UNIP

4.4% 3.4% 2.5% 1.5%


1.5%


1.0%


0.8%


0.6%

Independent candidate

0.6%

NAREP/NAREP party official

0.4%


0.4%

Like other media outlets, the Daily Nation equally gave undue coverage to the PF as shown in figure 27. However, UPND received nearly a third of the coverage, whilst the other political parties received some, but minimal coverage. 4.4 Nature of Coverage This section of the report presents findings of the nature of that coverage. It thus gives insights into how the different political players were covered. Table 1: Nature of coverage for the top four political parties in public media

PF UPND MMD FDD

PF UPND MMD FDD

PF UPND MMD FDD

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ZNBC TV1 Explicitly Positive Explicitly Negative 25.1% 1.6% 16.1% 5.4% 46.7% Times of Zambia Explicitly Positive Explicitly Negative 49.3% 4.9% 28.7% 19.6% 76.8% 3.6% 52.9% Zambia Daily Mail Explicitly Positive Explicitly Negative 46.1% 7.2% 26.3% 28.8% 33.3% 11.1% 40.0% 6.7% ZNBC Radio 2

Mixed 8.0% 7.1% 6.7%

Neutral 65.2% 71.4% 46.7% 100.0%

Mixed 13.3% 16.8% 3.6% 17.6%

Neutral 32.5% 35% 14.3% 29.4%

Mixed 23.7% 30.1% 33.3% 40.0%

Neutral 23.0% 14.7% 22.2% 13.3%

PF UPND MMD FDD

Explicitly Positive 35.1% 30.0% 25.0% 21.1%

Explicitly Negative 6.1% 20.0%

Mixed 2.5%

5.3%

Neutral 58.8% 47.5% 75.0% 73.7%

Table 1 above shows that coverage for PF was mainly explicitly positive or neutral across all public media. UPND, on the other hand, with what little coverage they did get received mainly explicitly negative or neutral coverage. This was most notable in the Zambia Daily Mail and ZNBC Radio 2, where nearly a third of stories about the UPND were explicitly negative. Table 2: Nature of coverage for the top four political parties in private media

PF UPND FDD Rainbow

PF UPND MMD FDD

PF UPND MMD FDD

Post Newspaper Explicitly Positive Explicitly Negative 21.4% 40.9% 32.7% 19.2% 50.0% 19.2% 43.8% Muvi TV Explicitly Positive Explicitly Negative 22.6% 29.0% 31.5% 31.5% 33.3% 11.1% 25.0% Daily Nation Explicitly Positive Explicitly Negative 21.7% 11.2% 15.7% 18.1% 34.4% 6.3% 12.5% 12.5%

Mixed 10.7% 11.6% 15.4% 31.3%

Neutral 27.0% 36.5% 15.4% 25.0%

Mixed 14.6% 5.6% 50.0%

Neutral 33.9% 31.5% 55.6% 25.0%

Mixed 11.2% 10.8% 12.5% 8.3%

Neutral 55.9% 55.4% 46.9% 66.7%

According to Table 2 above, the nature of coverage varied from one media organisation to the other within the private media. Whilst the Post Newspaper had more coverage of the PF, nearly half of this was explicitly negative, whilst more stories on UPND were explicitly positive or neutral. Muvi TV gave slightly more coverage to UPND and more of this was explicitly positive as compared to the coverage given to PF. The Daily Nation gave mainly neutral coverage, but slightly more positive coverage to the PF and negative coverage to UPND. 4.5 Editorial Quality This part of the report presents findings on the editorial quality of the stories covered by the media. A story was deemed to be balanced if more than one view point or voice was represented in the story. Stories were analysed as to whether they contained more than one source and different view points.

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Figure 28: Overall Points of view n=2337

Percentage

65.3%

32.0%

2.7%

No point of view

Single point of view

Multiple points of view

Points of view

Figure 28 shows that majority of stories across all media platforms were single sourced as opposed to including multiple points of view. 4.5.1 Editorial quality for TV media outlets Figure 29: Points of view as per TV stations 75.3%

Percentage

64.3%

35.7% 22.6% 2.1% ZNBC TV 1

MUVI TV

TV Station No point of view



Figure 29 below shows that ZNBC TV 1 had the largest number of stories with only one point of view whereas Muvi TV broadcast the most stories with multiple points of view.

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4.5.2 Editorial quality for print media Figure 30: Points of view as per Print 69.9%

Percentage

53.2%

47.9% 50.5%

42.1%

49.2% 49.2%

28.3%

4.7% The Post

1.8%

1.6%

1.6%

The Daily Nation

Times of Zambia

Zambia Daily Mail

Publication name No point of view



Figure 30 above shows that over half the stories in the private print media (The Post and Daily Nation) were based on a single source. The public print media (Times of Zambia and Zambia Daily Mail) fared better, with around half of their stories having multiple points of view. 4.5.3 Editorial Quality for private and public radio Figure 31: Points of view per Private and Public Radio 84.93%

87.9%

84.3%

78.9%

Percentage

60.5%

57.1% 42.1%

39.5% 15.1% 3.9% Q FM

12.1%

11.8%

Hot FM

10.5% 10.5% 0.8%

Phoenix

Sky Fm

Breeze FM

ZNBC Radio 2

Private & Public Radio No point of view



All private radio stations as shown in figure 31 relied on single sourcing. The public broadcaster – ZNBC Radio 2 – was slightly better with over 40% of their stories being based on multiple sources.

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4.5.4: Editorial Quality for community radio Figure 32: Points of view per community Radio 88.6%

86.7%

79.2%

Percentage

67.14%

30.00% 20.8% 2.86%

3.1%

Icengelo

11.4%

10.2%

Liseli

Kabangabanga

Mano

Community Radio No point of view



As was the case with public and private radio, across community radio the tendency as shown in Figure 32 was to single source stories. Overall, single sourcing appears more extreme in radio outlets and particularly amongst community media. Private media did slightly better especially in relation to TV. 5. Conclusion 5.5.1 Key Topics Across the pre-campaign, campaign and election periods, the media mainly covered electoral process issues, election campaigns and election related violence. Key topics to enable the electorate to base their decision as to which party to vote for were barely covered across public, private and community media. 5.5.2 Balance of Coverage Overall, all media outlets, except Muvi TV, covered the PF significantly more than any other party during this period. This was particularly marked in the public media where PF received twice, and in some cases three times, the amount of coverage that its closest rival, UPND, received. The coverage of PF was also more likely to be positive or neutral. Although some coverage was given to other political parties, this was minimal. This reflects a systematic bias in public media in favour of the ruling party. Given the reach of public media, this will have had an impact on the playing field ahead of the August polls. In the private media, only Muvi TV covered UPND more than any other party. They also gave more positive coverage to UPND. Although the Post Newspaper covered PF more than any other political party, a significant amount of this coverage was negative. 5.5.3 Editorial content and quality The majority of the media outlets had a considerably large number of stories containing a single point of view with the exception of Times of Zambia and Daily Mail in the public media and Muvi TV in the private media. All community media monitored mainly covered stories containing a single point of view, thus leaving them more prone to bias through not being balanced.

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6. Recommendations 



  

Throughout the pre-campaigning, campaign and election period, there was minimal coverage on the issues to inform the electorate in their choice of vote. There is a need to improve issue based reporting in general and in particular ahead of an election. Civic education and awareness also needs to be done to support citizens to demand for information on parties’ positions and policies. Prior to the next election, the Independent Broadcasting Authority or another mandated body needs to ensure that there is equal and fair coverage provided to all political players particularly in the public media to accord the electorate access to each political party in a fair and equitable manner. The undue prominence and positive bias of the ruling party (similar to the 2011 elections) is not healthy. The Electoral Commission of Zambia needs to be much more proactive and visible in safeguarding that the Electoral Code of Conduct (and in this case the media guidelines) is followed. The disparity in the coverage of male and female candidates was pronounced. Going forwards, media outlets need to take special measures to ensure are more equitable coverage of male and female candidates. All media outlets (community, private and public) need to improve on balancing their stories. A vast majority of stories which were broadcast or printed were based on one source or one point of view. This increases the likelihood of stories being biased and limits diversity.

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