VARYING election coverage rates on the two local television stations in the country have come out of recent research.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has been monitoring the coverage of political parties on the national broadcaster NBC, and One Africa television news over the past week. The results, published by Election Watch on its website (www.electionwatch. org.na), include the period from 30 October to 05 November 2009.
Election-related coverage of the parties on the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) TV were Swapo with 82 per cent, Swanu with 4 per cent, Democratic Turhalle Alliance (DTA) with 4 per cent, All People’s Party (APP) with 4 per cent, Republican Party (RP) with 4 per cent and the National Unity Democratic Organisation (Nudo) with 2 per cent.
Election Watch stressed that the ruling party Swapo had 40 minutes out of a total 49 minutes of coverage of parties over the week, which amounted to 17 separate items. “Some of the coverage of the opposition had a noticeably negative slant.
For example, the only coverage of the DTA was a rally cancellation, while coverage of the RP focused on internal disputes,” it noted. For One Africa, the results were Swapo with 50 per cent, Democratic Party of Namibia (DPN) with 14 per cent, Nudo with 14 per cent, Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) with 14 per cent and the APP with 7 per cent.
“One Africa, with shorter news broadcasts and no news slots at the weekend, devoted much less time to the elections. Swapo had 7 minutes of coverage out of a total of 14 devoted to parties,” it added.
Election Watch is a project of the IPPR, and funded by the Hanns Seidel Foundation and the Canadian Fund for Local Initiatives.
