During elections, the media have a very important role to play.  Reporting on Zimbabwe was undoubtedly particularly challenging.  However, South African media performed well.  Although they can be accused of bias, it seems they performed well in promoting human rights and democracy. This update will give a summary of how the South African media reported on the Zimbabwean elections in 2008 and explore the main themes of the coverage.

Media reports about the abuse of cleaning staff by students at the University of the Free State got horrified responses from various quarters. In this climate of public outrage, the print media had the choice of whether to make the identities of the offenders and victims public, or not. Most media seemed to have decided to publish the identities of the perpetrators, some media even added to the initial infringement on the victims’ dignity by revealing their identities. This article explores the ethics and reasons around this decision.

The Media Monitoring Project is now a friend of the court in the Sunday Times’ application to the Constitutional Court for an order declaring that section 12 violates the constitution.

Read the full story by Business Day

The coverage of Microbicide trails in 2007 the following findings showed the following patterns:

• The stories were afforded significant prominence in some of the newspapers monitored.
• Just over a quarter of the content items dramatised the issues.  This included using phrases such as “frantic search”, describing the volunteers as “desperate” or “pleading”, the use of exclamation marks, different font sizes and capitals to emphasise controversy, and the use of unnamed sources who make allegations that are not substantiated in the items monitored;
• Most content items analysed show a clear bias either in favour of the HIV and AIDS researchers, or against the researchers.
• In contrast, the volunteers are treated ambivalently and even in a demeaning way in several content items.

As a reader of Daily Sun newspaper, you will very possibly have a different understanding of what recently happened in Zandspruit, Honeydew than if you were a reader of The Star. The angle these two newspapers took on the story of the 7-year old girl who was found dead on the 10t March 2008 allow for an interesting comparison. The Star  focused on the accusations that the police failed to act on several phone calls from the family to report the missing girl. Daily Sun however did not mention this at all and limited its reporting to describing the incident, making the reaction of people to the police completely unfathomable. These stories gives a clear example of the necessity of balanced reporting.

The ANC Conference in December was without doubt the best and biggest media show in town. It came at a time when traditionally the media has to hunt for stories as key activities wind down and people go on holiday towards the end of the year.

In the month of August, Women’s Month, the Media Monitoring Project (MMP) monitored the media with a specific focus on the portrayal of women. This is part of MMP’s work as an independent media watchdog, fundamentally concerned with promoting Human Rights in the media.  During the monitoring of the news bulletins it appeared the women were often shown crying to add drama to the various stories.

Considering Youth Month provides ample opportunity to highlight issues around children, the Media Monitoring Project (MMP) wished to assess whether this was happening in South African media and if the coverage either violated or enhanced human rights of the children concerned.

During 2006 the Media Monitoring Project analysed coverage of the 16 days campaign to examine whether media upheld generally accepted media ethical principles. The findings show that, in covering the Campaign stories, the media most commonly violates the principle to do no harm, frequently by identifying the victim and exposing them to potential further abuse and victimisation.

In this update, we look at the South African media’s coverage of women on National Women’s Day, and the day before and after in the daily print. News media with weekly publications were investigated the week before and after the commemoration of the event. This was monitored by the Media Monitoring Project (MMP) in line with its media challenge for 2007. The investigation revealed that newspaper coverage around Women’s Day concentrated on prominent women, the dismissal of the Deputy Health Minister and gender-based violence.