Abuse of incumbency allegation…

Back with data–Caemmi

The Executive Director of the Centre for African Elections Media Monitoring Index (CAEMMI), Dr. Messan Mawugbe, has cautioned politicians and media players in Ghana and Africa to ensure that their allegations against state owned media abuse of incumbency are based on consistent, scientific, systematic and comprehensive research data and not on mere assumptions.

Reacting to comments from Lawyer Akoto Ampaw, a member of the National Media Commission (NMC) that the Commission is counting on governing boards to use procedures to sanction the media when it faults in promoting equal coverage.

Dr. Mawugbe said, “I think the allegations against the state owned Media over the years hasn’t been consistently and systematically based on a research data and until we are able to do that, it is very difficult to put the whole blame tag on the state owned media’’.

He further   added that, research findings on the representation of the various political parties in the state owned Media ( The Ghanaian Times, Daily Graphic and GBC’s Uniiq FM )  conducted by CAEMMI  for the month of January indicated that the incumbent National Democratic Congress (NDC) had the highest coverage due to its Primaries and other activities in January.

However, this he said cannot amount to incumbency abuse since the Progressive People’s party (PPP) also had an encouraging coverage than the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and others, due to its recent issues with the CPP.

‘’This means that, the coverage depends on the activities of the political parties and their ability to engage the Media and not just inviting them to cover programs, since there is a vast difference between the two’’.

He emphasised that political parties must endeavour to engage the Media in their activities and not depend on the constitutional provision (article 163, of the 1992 constitution) that enjoins the state owned media to provide an even coverage of  the various political parties.

He was speaking on Joy FM News night on Tuesday.

In a related development, speaking on Uniiq FM on Wednesday on measures to address equal coverage by the state– owned media in African elections, Dr. Mawugbe said political parties must also initiate programs that attract media coverage.

He added, “Political parties must have communication strategies to address their issues and engage the media effectively”.

He further asked the state owned media to have log books to document their coverage of the various political parties.

‘’The state owned media need to have a form of  News Auditing Log Book which should  always be made available in terms of political reporting by the end of the week, thus, how they have distributed their space and time to political parties’’.

“That is why CAEMMI is advocating, that observer groups must endeavour to make elections monitoring a consistent and systematic process since Democracy has no gestation period”.

Meanwhile, the NMC is planning to set up a committee to oversee its guidelines for free and fair coverage of political parties by the state owned media and   has planned meeting various groups such as political leaders, media owners, the Ghana Journalists Association, the Editors Forum, Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association, PRINPAG, Ghana Community Radio Networks, as well as journalists from both private and state-owned to ensure free, fair and peaceful elections.

This was revealed at a workshop organised by the NMC for the governing boards, chief executives and editors of the state-owned media in Accra.