ACCESS TO THE MEDIA

Oct 16, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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The state media cannot be described as balanced or fair in so far as its coverage of the opposition parties is concerned. The coverage of the state-owned media is often slanted in favour of the government and ruling party, and the views of the opposition are often minimized or ignored.
But that is nothing new. This has been legacy of the PNC’s monopoly of the state media. This one-sidedness has persisted under the PPP.
The opposition knows about this. It has experienced this. It cannot be satisfied with the coverage its views and activities are given in the state media when compared with that enjoyed by the ruling party or the government.
State-owned media of course have an obligation to report on developmental works and projects undertaken by the government. Because they are owned by the State, they are obligated to provide coverage to the government. But this coverage should not be partisan, and especially when reporting on news items, it should be fair in the sense that all sides of a story should be covered.
In recent times, the newscasts of the state-owned radio have allowed commentary to be represented as views and this has often been biased against the opposition parties and persons whom the government has issues with.
Balanced coverage and fair reporting is, however, different from access by opposition parties to the state-owned media. Balanced coverage and fair reporting refers to the everyday content of the news. It refers mainly to how news items are treated and to what is considered of public interest. If what the opposition is saying is not considered newsworthy while what the ruling party is saying is, then a case may exist of biased and imbalanced reporting. If when reporting on an issue in which the opposition may have an interest, the reports ignore or present commentary favourable to the government as news, then this is not fair reporting at all.
Access to the media is a completely different matter. Access to the media is where, especially in the run-up to elections, the various political parties are allowed airtime, whether paid for or provided free of cost.
Equitable access does not mean that all the political parties should have the same amount of time. It means that the time allocated to the respective parties should be based on a formula that can be considered fair.
One way of setting the formula to ensure fairness is to base it on the level of representation of the parties in parliament. Under this arrangement, parties are allocated airtime based on a formula that reflects the number of seats they have in the National Assembly. Under this formula, the ruling party would always have more airtime than the opposition parties.
One criticism of this arrangement is that it denies opportunities to small and new parties whose parliamentary strength has not yet been established. Thus new parties can be left out under this arrangement.
The state-owned NCN has decided to give five minutes per week to the political parties contesting this year’s general elections. If all the parties including the ruling party receive five minutes per week then this formula cannot be said to be inequitable to the opposition parties. It will be inequitable to the ruling party, which can argue that it should be entitled to more than the opposition parties by virtue of its superior seat allocation in the National Assembly.
The opposition parties, however, have problems with this five minutes per week. They want more time. But this five minutes per week that is being given to the opposition parties is far more than the then opposition parties were ever given when the PNC was in power. No opposition party got five minutes per week airtime during that period.
Obviously, of course, the PNC’s record can never be the benchmark by which fair practices can be judged. And therefore it needs to be asked whether the present airtime allocated is fair to the opposition parties.
In considering this point it needs to be borne in mind that the state-owned television station is a commercial enterprise which does not have unlimited free time to give to the political parties. The state-owned media have their regular programming from which they earn revenue. They therefore do not have the luxury of dedicating free airtime to political parties.
However, five minutes per week may be slightly shortchanging all the parties. The state-owned media may therefore wish to revisit this time allocation and instead consider two three-minute broadcasts per week during peak hours with a repeat during off-peak hours. Any additional coverage that the parties desire should be paid for and should be at fair market rates.

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