ZNBC coverage biased – EU Elections OM

The European Union Elections Observer Mission – […]

The European Union Elections Observer Mission – EU EOM has reported observing extremely skewed media coverage by national broadcaster – ZNBC despite the state owned media having legal obligations of equal coverage.

According the the preliminary report availed to the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, the EU EOM stated that the initiated the “media monitoring [process] from 15 July to 12 August across 10 outlets.

Their finding are that 1 found that “UPND received 96.2 and 90.5 per cent of airtime, respectively, in election-related news on ZNBC’s TV 1 and Radio 1.

During this period, NRPUP presidential candidate, Mr. [Brian] Mundubile, was almost excluded from news coverage on ZNBC TV 1, garnering only 0.1 per cent of coverage (1.1 per cent on ZNBC Radio 1).

Further, the media monitoring found that “president [Mr. Hakainde Hichilema] had 98.3 per cent of the total direct speech within the news on ZNBC TV1 and 98.4 per cent on ZNBC Radio 1, while Mr.Mundubile did not enjoy any direct speech, neither on national TV nor on national radio during the entire monitoring period. In addition, ZNBC TV 1 broadcast the president’s live campaign rallies daily.

Article by ZBT Analyst