{"id":34387,"date":"2023-09-13T07:20:21","date_gmt":"2023-09-13T07:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/zimbabwe-state-media-covers-elections-like-botswanas"},"modified":"2023-09-13T08:02:50","modified_gmt":"2023-09-13T08:02:50","slug":"zimbabwe-state-media-covers-elections-like-botswanas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/zimbabwe-state-media-covers-elections-like-botswanas","title":{"rendered":"Zimbabwe state media covers elections like Botswana\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Botswana. <\/strong><\/span>It was the contention of several stakeholders that the State-owned media houses remain biased against the opposition political parties and candidates. While the Mission noted some improvement compared to the 2018 electoral processes, we also noted that the content of the public broadcaster and the State-owned newspapers were in favour of one political party, contrary to the relevant provisions of the Constitution, the Electoral Act, and the Revised SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections, which requires State-owned media to be impartial.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

The Mission in question is one made up of representatives of SADC member states which recently observed Zimbabwe\u2019s general election \u2013 the SADC Electoral Observation Mission (SEOM). The European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) also made the same observation, addressing the matter more extensively than the SADC Mission did.<\/p>\n

\u201cEU EOM media analysis showed that state ZBC devoted over two-thirds of news and current affairs coverage to ZANU-PF, President Mnangagwa, and the government,\u201d says a statement from the EU, referring by the abbreviations to the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation and the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union \u2013 Patriotic Front.<\/p>\n

Being better resourced than SEOM, EU EOM monitored ZBC-owned radio stations and determined that they gave \u201calmost all\u201d their election related airtime to ZANU-PF and practically none to the opposition Citizen\u2019s Coalition for Change \u2013 which is led by Nelson Chamisa.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoverage of the president, government, and the ruling party by the state broadcaster was overwhelmingly positive, with no negative stories. The CCC did not take up free airtime on ZBC due to their history of negative reporting on the party and thus hadminimal coverage on ZBC, a third of which was negative in tone. Mr. Chamisa barely received any mentions on state TV and most of his features on the channel were also negative,\u201d says the EU, adding that the government-controlled media group, Zimpapers, also provided more diverse coverage on their TV and radio channels.<\/p>\n

Nobody really expected ZANU-PF to run a free and fair election but what is most interesting about the description of the media coverage is that the Zimbabwe state media covers elections no differently from Botswana\u2019s own.<\/p>\n

The most recent election was the Serowe West bye-election, which had been necessitated by the disqualification of Tshekedi Khama as the area\u2019s Member of Parliament. The international standard is that the media, especially the state media, covers every public event that the presidency addresses. Taking advantage of this arrangement, both President Mokgweetsi Masisi and Vice President Slumber Tsogwane addressed Botswana Democratic Party political rallies ahead of the by-election. The rallies received extensive coverage from all state media channels. On the other hand, such coverage was not extended to opposition candidates.<\/p>\n

From the point of view of journalism, the result of a by-election is big news and should get pride of place in the placement of stories. However, the Botswana state media doesn\u2019t treat it as such when the opposition wins \u2013 and the opposition has won practically all by-elections that followed the 2019 general election.<\/p>\n

The irony of the SADC statement is that Botswana was itself represented in SEOM \u2013 thus the country was party to criticism of a practice that it has indulged in for decades. With the possible exception of South Africa and Mauritius, Zimbabwe\u2019s state media functions no differently from state media in the rest of SADC. In Namibia, the founding president, Sam Nujoma, appointed himself minister of information and broadcasting with the explanation that he wanted to \u201ctackle problems\u201d at the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation.<\/p>\n

Source: Sunday Standard<\/b><\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Botswana<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Botswana. It was the contention of several stakeholders that the State-owned media houses remain biased against the opposition political parties and candidates. While the Mission noted some improvement compared to the 2018 electoral processes, we also noted that the content of the public broadcaster and the State-owned newspapers were in favour of one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":34385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[233,237,234],"class_list":["post-34387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-files","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-botswana","tag-botswana"],"yoast_head":"\nZimbabwe state media covers elections like Botswana\u2019s - Botswana<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It was the contention of several stakeholders that the State-owned media houses remain biased against the opposition ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/zimbabwe-state-media-covers-elections-like-botswanas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Zimbabwe state media covers elections like Botswana\u2019s\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It was the contention of several stakeholders that the State-owned media houses remain biased against the opposition ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/zimbabwe-state-media-covers-elections-like-botswanas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Botswana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-09-13T07:20:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-09-13T08:02:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2023\/09\/sm_1694579377.695282.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/zimbabwe-state-media-covers-elections-like-botswanas#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/zimbabwe-state-media-covers-elections-like-botswanas\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Zimbabwe state media covers elections like Botswana\u2019s\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-09-13T07:20:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-09-13T08:02:50+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/zimbabwe-state-media-covers-elections-like-botswanas\"},\"wordCount\":603,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/zimbabwe-state-media-covers-elections-like-botswanas#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2023\/09\/sm_1694579377.695282.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Botswana\",\"Botswana\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"files\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/zimbabwe-state-media-covers-elections-like-botswanas#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/zimbabwe-state-media-covers-elections-like-botswanas\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/zimbabwe-state-media-covers-elections-like-botswanas\",\"name\":\"Zimbabwe state media covers elections like Botswana\u2019s - 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