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.

There is no doubt that media freedom is essential for a functioning democracy, but it can be extremely difficult to realise and protect in a country where media have been used as a key tool of repression. Rwanda’s recent violent history provides a powerful argument for media monitoring.

This article by William Bird and Sandra Roberts was published in the Rhodes Journalism Review.

Reporting on Africa is a complex, as Africa is a continent with about 800 million people, with 54 countries of which South Africa is the southern tip.  Such diversity would seemingly warrant good background data to allow the newspaper readers to understand the context of events.  However, from this brief monitoring exercise, it seems that many of Gauteng-based media have not had the editorial commitment to cover Africa often and have ignored the complexities of various situations.

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) pose a challenge to media in South Africa and around the world. This is not surprising, as the regulatory and legal framework surrounding IPR is also imperfect. It seems that without specialist legal knowledge on IPR, it is difficult to understand the various issues surrounding it. This research aimed to examine media coverage and consider what is not covered in regard to IPR.

The Media Monitoring Project (MMP) has been petitioning government to change the proposed Film and Publications Amendment Bill. While it is crucial to protect the rights of children, the MMP argues that the Bill has negative implications for media freedom in South Africa. Amongst other things, it is trying to get the country's newspaper's to self-regulate. Chakula spoke to William Bird, the Director of the MMP, and Sandra Roberts, a Project Co-ordinator at the organisation.

Following the highly successful challenge issued by the Media Monitoring Project (MMP) to the South African media in the previous years for the coverage of National Women’s Day, the MMP has decided to re-issue the challenge to the media this year: to mainstream women on National Women’s Day. Instead of the media merely concentrating on so called “women’s issues” and only on the celebrations that are set to take place on the 9th of August, the MMP challenges the media to fill their papers, radio broadcasts, television schedules and news programmes with women.

South Africa was the main destination, worldwide, for new asylum-seekers in 2006, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It is surprising then, the lack of attention that World Refugee Day and its associated gender issues got from the South African media.

The MMP made a submission to the Section 69 of the Electronic Communications Act to ensure that the Act continues to have human rights presented therein. MMP has made submissions on the original Code of Conduct for Broadcasters, as well as on the SABC’s editorial policies, where it is worth noting that some of MMP’s recommendations were included in the final editorial code currently in operation.

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.  

South Africa was the main destination, worldwide, for new asylum-seekers in 2006, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It is surprising then, the lack of attention that World Refugee Day got from the South African media. The Media Monitoring Project did a quick scan of English Johannesburg dailies to see how it was covered and found that the Sowetan and The Star are the only newspapers to provide good coverage on this global event.