By Robel Yohannes
Recently, Ethiopian Press Agency journalists caught up with Negeri Lencho (PhD), Assistant Professor of Journalism & Communication at Addis Ababa University, and asked him some questions related to media and democracy, and media's role during election spruced up with Ethiopia's context in light with the upcoming election.
Herald: What's the link between Democracy and Media?
Democracy and media, especially the one we call free or independent media, have a strong link to each other. Democracy, as a concept, is process where people reflect their interest freely; while it is also a process where people decide their destiny within a political setting. Stressing on the latter, when we say democracy is a process where the people freely decides their destiny, at the same time there are things the public should be privy about, including the repercussions of their decisions.
What this means is when the public is making these decisions, they should do so on the basis of correct and real time information, and not intuitively. So, what juxtaposes both media and democracy is when the correct information is presented to the public without any kind of interference. And in today's 'information age', democracy without the media is hollow politics.
In Ethiopian context, the preamble of the Constitution stresses on the necessity of democracy, by stating that it's an existential issue for the country.
Also, with regards to freedom of media, the preamble on the broadcast proclamation states the need to build free media. Both in principle and in respect to our country's realities, we can see that democracy and the media are interrelated. And in practice, we can say that 'our media mirrors our democracy, and inversely our democracy mirrors our media'.
What should be the role of media during elections?
There are different phases any election goes through; first there is political parties and candidates registration. During this phase, the media has two fold duties. One is, as the law might be violated during this process, the media should investigate and check if the calls of violation are legitimate. They should educate the public that getting involved in election is a democratic right.
But the main event lies during campaigning. The parties should be given the chance to present themselves to the voting public; and obviously, media should provide them the platform to notify their positions and their policy alternatives to the voting public.
The media should also approach the public and work out questions and agenda to be forwarded to the political parties. Presenting the policy alternatives to the public in a neutral way is important; so that the public are able to choose between candidate parties in an informed way.
And during the actual election, the media should look into and report on the handling of the voters, the suitability of the conditions for voting, investigate inappropriate or illegal acts that may arise during the process, together with the role and activities of the observers. All these issues demand the full attention of the media. The Media should also be looking into if whether the political parties are adhering to the laws.
And regarding the post-election phase, the media should not behave in a way that would give advantage to a specific party by declaring a 'winner' or 'loser' before the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) finishes counting the votes. What it should do though is follow up on complaints or problems that may arise during the vote counting.
Again coming to our context in light with the upcoming election, I can say both the public and private media have covered the registration phase of the election and the works put in by the election board thoroughly. I believe both the private and public print and electronic media spearheaded huge work before political parties' campaign started.
So, it can be said that they have been doing what it is expected of them; but the contents of their work need further study. We just can't simply criticize or applaud, as it needs further assessment. But basically I can say they have performed well.
Compared to past experiences, the media are covering the election more responsibly this time around. What this means is we are not seeing extremely biased reporting or coverage. I noticed the media covering both the oppositions and the ruling party's election campaign from the spot. This should be encouraged. This is of course not to say that there aren't areas that need further improvement or work."
You have already touched upon it; how do rate the airtime allocation of political parties regarding the upcoming election?
Media airtime has been allocated to candidate parties; while some of them got a column in newspapers to post their campaign.
Of course, there are some parties that worked very well to seize the opportunity; there are also those who didn't use the airtime or the newspaper column to the fullest. And this isn't right, given that they should promote their programmes through the Media. They shouldn't otherwise be complaining about not getting Media coverage or an unfair treatment after the election.
The main role of the opposition parties during this time is to present their policy alternatives to the general public, while preparing for the election. On the other hand, the ruling party's job during these times is to capitalize on the good works it had done during its administrative years.
So, there is a tendency by the ruling party to use the Media to showcase the various works it carried out during its administration. Although the ruling party is not doing it as an election campaign, nevertheless it may appear to be so. The government undertakes many things, and it works for them to get showcased.
As a consequence of the sensitivity of the time, there are occasions when they seem to be an election campaign. Looking at the situation as a professional, it seem to me that when the ruling party is presenting all the positive things it has done, it's at the same time saying 'I'm the better party'. And compared to the opposition parties, this situation unintentionally affords it more opportunity. But, the chance should be equal. This is not to say that there is something wrong in showing the public all the good work that has been done.
But, the issue here lies in the work that is left undone by the journalist in these situations. When the ruling party is presenting all the works it has done, it's the job of the journalists to present the things that are undone side by side with the stories. When they present all the things the government did and not do, then their credibility will be strengthened.
This is one thing, and there is another thing that should be taken into account when discussing about airtime allocation. It should be noted that calls for equal opportunity concerns two or three highly organized parties that exists in a given country.
After identifying the strength of the parties by accounting for the organizational strength and the number of candidates they provide for the election, Media air time should be allocated accordingly. After all, it can't be said that the opportunity should also equally befall upon those parties that are not as strong and make limited moves in the election. It's not appropriate for the media to report or give disproportionate coverage with respect to the strength of the political parties.
Source: allafrica
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