The Sunday Mail
JOURNALISTS are first-line election observers. It is how they choose to write and report that sets the tone of the polls.
Miriam Tose Majome
The media sets the election agenda and influences what people think and talk about during polls, which affects their voting patterns.
The media decides whether or not the reportage will be factual, peaceful, speculative, hateful or violent.
The media can cause conflict through use of provocative and hate language or just setting people against each other.
To promote professional election reporting, the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) conducted intensive training across the country for journalists who would be covering the polls.
The commission undertook to train 1 000 journalists throughout the country to ensure the media and journalists adhered to professional standards for election reporting.
The local media did a good job covering the elections.
Many election officers and agents in urban areas reported that local journalists had visited their polling stations. They commended the journalists for doing their job without interfering with voting processes.
Rural areas received significantly less coverage than urban areas.
More needs to be done to enhance coverage of rural areas, but financial constraints facing many media houses and accessibility problems remain the biggest impediments.
Before the elections, the commission gave accredited local reporters media jackets that were very visible across the country.
Most journalists wearing the jackets lived up to the billing, save for only a few who played truant and ended up being filmed while intoxicated.
The commission takes exception to unprofessional conduct by journalists and will reprimand any errant ones.
The training also focused on the safety of journalists and how they can protect themselves because media practitioners are often targets of political violence and abuse.
They were trained on conflict resolution. The training impressed upon the media to be factual and purposefully encourage peaceful elections.
The polls were largely peaceful except for a few isolated incidents, with one that led to a fatality.
In many ways, the peace that prevailed can largely be attributed to the attitude and conduct of the media.
It was impressed upon the participants that the media is only a communication platform between the contestants and voters. The platform is for disseminating information and promoting public debate.
It is where candidates, political parties and their policies are analysed and scrutinised to enable voters to judge for themselves.
The media is strongly discouraged from taking sides and telling readers what to think and how to vote.
To show the importance of the media and election reporting, the Electoral Act prescribes the formation of a Media Monitoring Committee during an election period.
The committee comprises the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), ZMC and the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe.
During elections, ZEC presides over election media coverage and chairs the committee. The committee produces a report, which is an addendum to its main elections report to Parliament.
The commission eagerly awaits the report, which it will share with practitioners and use as a learning board for future elections.
The committee monitors media coverage of the election, in line with provisions of the ZEC Media Coverage of Elections General Regulation — Statutory Instrument 33 of 2008.
The guidelines attempt to create a level media playing field so that all political contestants obtain fair and equitable coverage in the pre-election period.
The public broadcaster recently published its election reporting schedule and the time it allocated the different candidates.
Contestants who believe were not accorded fair coverage or denied coverage can appeal to the Media Monitoring Committee before the report is completed and filed.
Miriam Tose Majome is a commissioner at the Zimbabwe Media Commission.
