His Master's Voice, Political Reporting Swaziland 2007 - MISA

His Master’s Voice:
Political Reporting in Swaziland

2007
Funded by:
Written by Mary Ellen Rogers

His Master’s Voice
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................4
2 Rationale.................................................................................................................4
3 What is political reporting?....................................................................................4
4 Objectives ..............................................................................................................5
5 Method ...................................................................................................................6
5.1 Research tool ......................................................................................................... 6
5.2 What media was monitored?.............................................................................. 6
5.3 Time period............................................................................................................. 6
5.4 Limitations ............................................................................................................... 6
6 Executive summary ...............................................................................................7
7 Findings...................................................................................................................9
7.1 Topics....................................................................................................................... 9
7.2 Origin of stories..................................................................................................... 12
7.3 Sex of journalists ................................................................................................... 13
7.4 Story sources......................................................................................................... 14

7.4.1 Number of sources per story...........................................................................................14
7.4.2 Women’s voices................................................................................................................16
7.4.3 Who speaks in political stories?......................................................................................17
7.4.4 What did government speak about?...........................................................................19
7.4.5 Role of sources ..................................................................................................................19
7.5 Type ....................................................................................................................... 20
7.6 Quality of Information ......................................................................................... 21

7.6.1 Sample stories: uninformative political reporting .......................................................23
7.7 Ethics...................................................................................................................... 27
7.7.1 Seek and express the truth..............................................................................................27
7.7.2 Be independent and objective .....................................................................................28
7.7.3 Where was the most unethical coverage?.................................................................29
2
7.7.4 Sample stories: unethical political reporting ...............................................................29
7.8 Bias in political reporting..................................................................................... 31

7.8.1 Where was the most biased coverage?......................................................................33
7.8.2 Sample stories: biased political reporting ....................................................................33
7.8.3 Favourable bias vs critical coverage ...........................................................................35
7.9 Treatment of two significant stories................................................................... 37

7.9.1 Story I: the police union ...................................................................................................37
7.9.2 Story II: the Mzikayise trial ................................................................................................39
7.10 Reporting corruption ....................................................................................... 43
7.11 State vs private media .................................................................................... 44
8 Conclusion............................................................................................................46
8.1 Behind the findings .............................................................................................. 47
8.2 Recommendations.............................................................................................. 48
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1 Introduction
This is a study on political reporting in Swaziland over a five-week period during

2007 using the media monitoring research tool developed by the Media
Monitoring Project.i
A quantitative analysis of political reporting was undertaken covering aspects

such as story topics, origin of stories, number of sources, gender representation,
diversity of voices, ethical violations and bias.
This study also includes a qualitative assessment of the depth of information

contained in political stories, ethics and fairness in political coverage as well as
the media’s treatment of two significant political stories.
2 Rationale
The MISA Swaziland News Diet Study (2006) revealed that news reporting in
Swaziland is heavily dominated by stories about national government and
politics. But what are these stories about? And how are they reported? Are these
stories informative and educative? Are they analytical or just descriptive? Do
they have diverse sources that include progressive voices? Are they fair and
balanced? This study seeks to answer these questions.
In answering these questions it is hoped the media will be able to better identify
their strengths and weaknesses when reporting on government and political
issues and thus be better equipped to deliver informative and fair political
coverage in the lead-up to the 2008 national elections.
Further, the existence of state media in Swaziland is often assumed to taint the
quality of journalism, particularly in relation to political matters. This study aims to
examine whether there are any significant differences in political coverage
between the state and private media.
3 What is political reporting?
For the purposes of this study, political reporting refers to stories in which either
national government is the subject or stories that involve substantive political
issues.
National government includes the executive, legislature and judiciary and

specifically includes the King’s Council and those senior traditional leaders who
raise political issues. The legislature refers to individual members of parliament, as
well as parliament as a whole.
4
A political issue refers to matters of government policy, law, government

activities and initiatives and the allocation of resources that are capable of
drawing some debate.
A police car breaks down on the highway. Not a political story.
A police car breaks down because the police service does not have the funds to
maintain their fleet. A political story.
A judge sentences a thief. Not a political story.
A judge sentences a corrupt official. A political story.
4 Objectives
Determine what policies, issues and debates are covered in political

reporting;
Assess the degree to which political reporting is fair, accurate and

balanced;
Examine the extent to which political reporting is informative, in-depth

and analytical;
Determine who speaks in political stories;
Assess the diversity of voices in political stories;
Examine to what extent women speak in political stories;
Determine to what extent political reporting is sourced from a variety of

regions;
Assess the media’s treatment of two significant political stories;
Determine the gender breakdown of journalists reporting on politics;
Compare aspects of political reporting on TV, print and radio;
Compare the quality of political reporting in the state and private media.
5
5 Method
5.1 Research tool
The media monitoring research tool developed by the Media Monitoring Project
(MMP) was used to collate and analyse quantitative and qualitative data.
5.2 What media was monitored?
Medium Content
Times of Swaziland News, editorials, features, analysis and opinion
Swazi News News, editorials, features, analysis and opinion
Times of Swaziland Sunday News, editorials, features, analysis and opinion
Swazi Observer News, editorials, features, analysis and opinion
Weekend Observer News, editorials, features, analysis and opinion
Swazi TV 20:00 English news bulletin Monday-Friday
Swaziland Broadcasting and 18:00 English news bulletin Monday-Friday
Information Services (SBIS) 18:15 English current affairs Monday-Friday
See Appendix 1 for a list of the Swaziland media industry.
5.3 Time period
The monitoring data used for this study was gathered from two separate time
periods during 2007. In total, the media was monitored for five weeks (35 days).
Period 1: 12 March 2007 – 1 April 12 2007ii
Period 2: 5 November 2007 – 18 November 2007
These periods were chosen at random.
5.4 Limitations
Exclusion of Channel Swazi: Channel Swazi, the smaller of the two

domestic television stations, has very limited coverage and could not be
accessed from the recording location.
Restricted sample of broadcasting content: Broadcasting content

captured for this study included the English evening news bulletins on both
SBIS and Swazi TV and the radio current affairs program.iii Political
reporting broadcast on other programs was not monitored.
6
Exclusion of The Nation: This monthly magazine contains a lot of political

reporting, but it was not included in the monitoring.
6 Executive summary
#1 Political coverage lacked diversity: Four topics – labour/workers rights,

justice system, development and corruption – occupied 50% of political
coverage. Topics such as government spending, democracy, HIV/AIDS
and poverty received little attention. Topics p.9
#2 Regional stories were severely lacking: Political reporting gave minimal

attention to regional stories and overwhelmingly favoured regional stories
from Hhohho. Origin of stories p.12
#3 Female journalists were underrepresented: Female journalists were

responsible for just 12% of political coverage. Sex of journalists p.13
#4 Best and worst on female journalists: Swazi TV and SBIS had the highest
percentage of female journalists reporting on government and political
issues. Swazi News and Times Sunday had no political coverage written by
women during the monitoring period. Sex of journalists p.14
#5 The majority of political reporting was single-sourced. 55% of political

stories were single-sourced. Story sources p.14
#6 Best and worst on single-sourcing: The Times Sunday had the least number
of single-sourced stories (41%), while the Weekend Observer had the most
(68%). Story sources p.15
#7 Voices of women absent: Political reporting was heavily dominated by

male voices. Female voices barely featured in political stories, accounting
for just 4% of all human sources. Women’s voices p.16
#8 Best and worst on female voices: Swazi TV’s political coverage contained
the most female voices (23%). Swazi News had just one female source in
its political reporting during the monitoring period. Women’s voices p.17
#9 Government voices dominated: Political reporting was dominated by the

voices and views of government. Government sources accounted for 57%
of all sources, and when government is defined more broadly to include
the executive, judiciary and traditional authorities, the dominance of
government voices jumped to 75%. Who speaks in political stories? p.17
7
#10 Government spoke most frequently about development: When

government spoke in the media it was most often about development.
Among the topics government spoke about least were social welfare and
poverty. What did government speak about? p.19
#11 Voices of experts absent: The representation of experts and independent

analysts accounted for less than 1% of all sources. Source role p.19
#12 Very little in-depth political reporting: In-depth political coverage in the
form of features and analysis accounted for just 3% of all stories. Type p.20
#13 Most political reporting was event-based: The vast majority of stories were
simple event descriptions that failed to provide enough context and
address the pertinent issues. Quality of information p.21
#14 One in ten political stories was unethical: 11% of political stories violated at
least one ethical principle. The failure to be independent and objective
was the most common type of unethical reporting. Ethics p.27
#15 Best and worst on ethical political reporting: The Times Sunday had the
lowest percentage of unethical (6%) reporting, while the Weekend
Observer had the highest (20%). Where was the most unethical
coverage? p.29
#16 Almost all biased reporting favoured government: Most biased stories
favoured government by failing to give voice to a key person or party
opposing the government view. Bias in political reporting p.31
#17 Best and worst on biased reporting: The Times Sunday contained the
lowest percentage of biased political stories (3%). SBIS had the highest
percentage of biased coverage (17%). Where was the most biased
coverage? p.33
#18 The Times ran the most content critical of government: The Times
publications contained the most number of stories critical of government.
The Observer displayed cautiousness towards reporting criticisms of
government, while SBIS and Swazi TV largely avoided content critical of
government. Favourable bias vs critical coverage p.35
#19 The Times provided the most informative and fair coverage of two
politically sensitive stories: The stories of the police union and the
Mzikayise trial were given the most diverse, informative and fair coverage
by the Times. Treatment of two significant stories p.37
#20 The Times ran the most corruption stories: Swazi News contained the
highest percentage of corruption coverage, followed by Times Sunday
and Times of Swaziland. Reporting corruption p.43
8
#21 The state media lacked editorial independence: State broadcasters, SBIS
and Swazi TV, ran political reporting that often promoted and favoured
government. Notably, the Observer’s coverage had more in common
with that of the state media than that of the Times. State vs private media
p.44
7 Findings
7.1 Topics
Examining which topics are covered in political reporting tells us not just what
type of political events, issues and debates are reported, but also how often. This
reveals the media’s choices and priorities when it comes to reporting on
government and political issues, but it also reveals something about the
government’s choices and priorities and the direction of political debate in the
country.
Every political story monitored was assigned a topic that best captured what the
story was about. Graph 1 shows the top 20 topics canvassed in political stories.
9
Graph 1: Topics of political stories - Top 20
Labour/Workers Rights
Justice System
Development
Corruption
Drought/Food Insecurity
Health
Education
Environment
Diplomacy
National Parliament
Democracy
Government spending
Economics
Business and investment
HIV/AIDS
Media
Swaziland Conflict
Housing
Orphans and vulnerable children
Poverty
0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14%
10
Graph 1 illustrates that there was little diversity in political reporting. Political
reporting was clearly dominated by just four issues: labour/workers rights, the
justice system, development and corruption. Other topics such as HIV/AIDS and
poverty were barely reported on as political issues or in relation to government
policies and activities.
The most common political story was about labour/workers’ rights issues. Graph
1 shows that 14% of all political reporting was about this topic. Within this topic
there was a variety of stories, including workplace disputes involving
government, dealings between government and unions, efforts to form a police
union, civil servants and teachers demanding better pay and conditions, a
nurses strike, activities and initiatives of the Department of Employment and court
cases on labour issues pitting government against workers. Not one particular
labour story dominated. This diversity of political stories on labour-related issues
demonstrates that workers’ rights across the board was the dominant political
story.
Political stories about the justice system were mainly about court rulings on cases
involving government, in particular the Mzikayise case (see7.9.2). Other justice
system stories were about constitutional issues, legislation, bills, High Court
appointments and the Judicial Services Commission.
Development stories were about development projects and policies that involve
government. The monitoring revealed that development was one of the
government’s policy areas most commonly reported on.
The stories about corruption included coverage of a drug procurement scandal

where three MPs were accused of abusing their office, an E50m corruption case
involving key government figures, government fraud and conflict of interest
stories, in particular, a story about conflict of interest at the parastatal, Swaziland
Electricity Company (SEC).
These four topics – labour/workers’ rights, justice system, development and

corruption – occupied almost 50% of the political coverage during the
monitoring period. On the other hand, government spending, democracy,
HIV/AIDS and poverty together accounted for just 9% of all political stories.
The following provides explanations of some of the topics that appear on Graph
1.
National Parliament refers to stories about debate in parliament that was not
issue-specific. For example, parliament’s discussion of performance criticisms,
personal attacks and the call for better attendance in parliament. If
parliamentary stories were about issue-specific debate, such as debate on
hospitals or the budget, these stories would be assigned the topic that best
captured this issue, that is, health or government spending respectively.
11
Health refers to stories about the government health sector, national health issues
involving government, such as, the call for government to respond to the TB crisis
and activities of the Ministry of Health. Whereas HIV/AIDS refers to stories that
were specifically about government initiatives, statements, policies and
programs on HIV/AIDS.
Stories about Swaziland conflict were reports about political demonstrations,

threats to national stability and, in particular, the threat of violence and
bloodshed resulting from the Mzikayise case.
7.2 Origin of stories
The origin of every story was captured to measure the extent to which the media
covers political stories from all regions of the country. Political reporting is very
often of national significance, so stories that were not specific to a single region,
but were of relevance to the nation as a whole, were assigned ‘national’ as their
origin. Graph 2 shows the breakdown of the origin of political stories.
Graph 2: Origin of political stories
Shiselweni
Lubombo 2%
2% Manzini
1%
Hhohho
9%
National
86%
Political reporting was overwhelming dominated by stories of national

significance. Stories with a national focus accounted for 86% of all political
coverage.
It’s expected that many stories about national government would be of national
significance, but the representation of regional political stories was extremely
low. Further, Graph 2 demonstrates that when political stories were local, Hhohho
was clearly the favoured region. Hhohho is home to the capital and is also the
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region where all the media houses are based. The media’s concentration in
Hhohho limits its potential to report equitably on all regions. Lubombo, Shiselweni
and Manzini barely featured in political reporting. This is in line with previous
research showing that these regions generally get very little attention in the
media.iv
7.3 Sex of journalists
Graph 3 shows the breakdown of male and female journalists responsible for
political stories.
Graph 3: Sex of journalists
Female
12%
Male
88%
The monitoring revealed that only 12% of all political coverage was written by
female journalists. The representation of women in political reporting is
significantly lower than in general news reporting, where previous research found
female journalists accounted for 21% of all stories.v Reporting on politics is clearly
a male domain.
How do the media compare on the sex of journalists? Graph 4 shows the
breakdown of female and male journalists reporting on politics for each medium.
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Graph 4: Sex of journalist by medium
100%
80%
60% Female
Male
40%
20%
0%
V
IS
ay
r
s
nd
ve
iT
ve
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SB
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iN
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Su
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Sw
az
O
Sw
O
es
Sw
i
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of
Sw
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W
Ti
The broadcasting sector had a much higher inclusion of female journalists

reporting on politics than the print sector. Swazi TV, in particular, is to be
commended for having an almost even share between the sexes.
The Times publications had almost no female reporters writing about government
and political issues. Men wrote all the political coverage in both the weekly
publications, Swazi News and Times Sunday. The Times of Swaziland had just
three stories written by women for the entire five-week monitoring period.
The Swazi Observer and Weekend Observer performed only fractionally better
than the Times with 5% and 2% of political coverage respectively being reported
by women.
7.4 Story sources
7.4.1 Number of sources per story
When analysing story sourcesvi we first asked, to what extent do political stories
rely on one source or multiple sources? It is assumed that stories ought to contain
multiple sources. Stories that rely on too few sources are more likely to be
uninformative and/or unbalanced. Graph 5 shows the breakdown of the
number of sources per story.
14
Graph 5: Number of sources per story
None
6%
Three or more
12%
Two
27% Single
55%
The majority (55%) of political stories in the Swazi media are based on just one
source. This mirrors previous research where single-sourced stories accounted for
51% of general news reporting.vii Once again, single-sourcing proves to be a
chronic problem in the Swazi media. And the problem is not confined to a
particular medium. Graph 6 shows the percentage of single-sourced political
stories for each medium.
Graph 6: Single-sourced stories (%) by medium
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
TV
IS
r
ay
r
nd
ve
ve
ew
SB
nd
er
la
er
az
N
i
bs
Su
az
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Sw
i
az
Sw
O
es
Sw
nd
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of
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The number of single-sourced stories in political coverage is fairly evenly

distributed across all media. Though the Times Sunday had notably fewer single-
sourced stories (41%) than the worst performer, Weekend Observer (68%), it still
published an extraordinarily high number of single-sourced stories.
15
This habit of single-sourcing proves to be a major contributor to other

problematic features of political reporting such as poor quality of information
(See 7.6) and bias (See 7.8).
7.4.2 Women’s voices
To what extent do women’s voices feature in political reporting? Monitors

captured the sex of every source to examine the gender balance in political
stories. Graph 7 shows the breakdown of male and female sources.
Graph 7: Sex of sources
Female
4%
Male
96%
Political reporting was overwhelmingly dominated by male voices. In fact,

women barely featured in political stories at all, accounting for just 4% of all
human sources.viii This is, in part, a reflection of the marginalisation of women in
Swazi politics. However, it’s not just women in government that are not being
sourced for political stories. Graph 7 shows that women in every sector of society
are not having their voices heard on political events and issues.
The 4% that accounted for female voices comprised mostly of voices from
government, in particular, the Deputy Prime Minister and the two female
Cabinet members, Minister for Tourism, Environment and Telecommunications
and the Minister for Energy and Natural Resources. Non-government female
sources were extremely rare. This is despite the fact that there was a lot of
coverage of stories that particularly affect women, such as drought and food
insecurity, development, and workers rights.
Which medium performed best on accessing female sources? Graph 8 shows

the percentage of male and female sources accessed by each medium.
16
Graph 8: Sex of source by medium
100%
80%
60% Female
Male
40%
20%
0%
TV
IS
r
ay
s
r
nd
ve
ve
ew
SB
nd
er
ila
i
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N
bs
Su
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Sw
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O
Sw
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Swazi TV outperformed all other media on accessing female sources. One in five
(23%) of all sources on Swazi TV were women. Swazi News clearly performed the
worst, accessing just one female source (3%) in five weeks of political coverage.
It’s worth noting that the female voices on Swazi TV were almost exclusively from
government. Only two non-government female voices were included in the
Swazi TV coverage.
7.4.3 Who speaks in political stories?
In addition to recording the sex of every source, monitors categorised each

source according to which sector of society they represented in the story.ix This
enables us to assess whose views and voices we are exposed to in the media’s
political coverage. Graph 9 shows the top 10 source groups that were accessed
in political stories.
17
Graph 9: Top 10 source groups
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
ent iety tem nions nders State orities tatals arties NGO
s
v ernm il soc e Sys U F u
d of
uth r as
al P
Go Civ tic a A Pa itic
Jus He ional Pol
ad it
Tr
Political reporting was overwhelmingly dominated by the voices and views of

government. Government sources accounted for 57% of all sources in political
coverage. Government here refers to cabinet, ministry staff, MPs, senators,
spokespeople and the like. The second biggest single group of sources after
government was civil society, which accounted for 13% of all sources in political
coverage. Civil society refers to sources such as educators, workers, ordinary
citizens, business people and religious leaders.
It is expected that those in government will speak most frequently in political

stories. But Graph 9 reveals an enormous discrepancy between the number of
voices from government and the number of voices from the rest of society. In
fact, if we use the broader definition of government, to include head of state,
the justice system, traditional authorities and parastatals, the dominance of
government voices in political stories jumps from 57% to 75%.
If we combine this finding that 57% of all sources were government sources with
the finding that 55% of stories were single-sourced (See 7.4.1), then a typical
political story is a story with one source and that source is from government.
18
7.4.4 What did government speak about?
If government was by far the most dominant voice in political stories, what kind
of issues was government most often speaking about? Graph 10 shows the top
five topics most frequently addressed by government in the media.
Graph 10: Topics addressed by government

(% stories featuring government sources)
Development
Corruption
Labour/Unemployment
Drought/Food Insecurity
Health
0% 5% 10% 15% 20%
The monitoring revealed that government spoke most often about

development. Fifteen per cent (15%) of all stories featuring government voices
were about development. The issues that government spoke about least were
poverty, crime and social welfare.
Development was also a favoured topic for the King. When the King was heard
in political coverage he was almost exclusively speaking about development
issues. On occasion he was captured speaking on interstate relations, economics
and corruption. Just two stories captured the King speaking about HIV/AIDS.
7.4.5 Role of sources
Every source is also categorised according to the role they play in the story. For
example, a source might be the subject of the story, a spokesperson for a certain
organization, an expert giving independent analysis or he/she might be
providing information based on personal experience of the event/issue.
Examining the role of sources revealed that an overwhelming majority (81%) of

sources were speaking in the story because they were the subject of the story,
that is, the story was about something they had done or said.
19
What does this tell us about political reporting? It’s evidence that political
reporting is event-driven. That is, most political stories were built around
describing who said or did what.
A greater diversity in the role of sources to include analysts and experts or people
speaking from personal experience would indicate an effort to go beyond the
event itself, provide analysis and a diversity of viewpoints that would better
contextualise the story. But accessing such sources was extremely rare. Experts
and individuals speaking from personal experience accounted for less than 2%
of all sources.
7.5 Type
In what format do we read and hear about political issues? That is, do these
stories come to us in opinion pieces, as news items, or as in-depth features and
so on? Recording the story type enables us to see how diverse the coverage is
and to examine to what extent the media provides interpretation and analysis of
political stories. Graph 11 shows the breakdown of story type.
Graph 11: Type of political stories
Editorial In brief/shorts,
3% fact boxes
2%
Feature/news
analysis Interview/ Q & A
3% 1%
Opinion piece
5%
News story
86%
The majority of political stories (86%) came to us as news items. It’s expected that
news stories would dominate the type of political coverage since all media
naturally devote most space to news items. However, graph 11 does
demonstrate that there was remarkably little political coverage in the form of in-
depth features and analysis.
20
7.6 Quality of Information
The quality of information in a story was measured using the following six
information categories:
Context basic: the story contains the basic details so the reader/listener
knows who did what and when;
Causes: the story explains the reasons for the event occurring;
Consequences: the story includes actual and possible impacts of the event;
Solutions: the story mentions possible solutions;
Legislation: the story refers to relevant legislation or policy;
Context In-depth: the story is very well-contextualised, going beyond the

event itself to examine the backdrop against which it occurred and broader
social consequences, making relevant connections with other events and
mentioning recurring patterns.
Not every story ought to meet all six categories of information, but clearly the
more levels of information provided, the better contextualised the story is.
Graph 12 shows the percentage of political stories that met each information
category.
Graph 12: Information categories (% stories)
Context Basic
Causes
Consequences
Solutions
Legislation
Context In-depth
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
The monitoring revealed that almost every political story (98%) provided the
basic information needed to know who did what, where and when. But Graph
21
12 shows that few stories went beyond providing these basic details to include
more in-depth information and context. The majority of stories only met one of
the six information criteria (context basic).
This chronic lack of information indicates that political coverage was almost
exclusively event-based reporting. That is, most stories were simple event
descriptions with no exploration or analysis of the key issues. This trend was
evident across all media. Even though print media clearly has more scope to
investigate stories and provide in-depth analysis of issues, much of the print
coverage was event-based.
There were three common features of political coverage across all media that
determined the uncritical, descriptive nature of political stories.
1. Poor sourcing: Sources were usually confined to the person who was the
subject of the story. For example, if the story was about the Prime Minister
denouncing the police union, most reporters would only source the Prime
Minister. There was very rarely any effort to take the event/issue to other
relevant sources to seek verification, responses, comment or analysis.
Adding sources is the most obvious way to deepen information and
develop the story. But the monitoring revealed journalists across all media
did not regularly source people other than those who were the subject of
the event. And broadcasting, in particular, demonstrated a pattern of
ignoring relevant sources in favour of government sources. For example, a
Swazi TV report of a film industry conference attended by the Minister for
Public Service and Information interviewed the Minister only, despite the
fact that there were many other non-government sources that would
have been more relevant and informative.
2. Failure to ask questions: Reporters tended to take events at face value.

That is, they rarely asked questions of relevant sources and scrutinized the
underlying issues. This resulted in very superficial reporting that covered
who, what, when, where but repeatedly ignored the how and the why of
the event. It was rare to find evidence of the reporter directly questioning
sources. Typically, a political story would just summarise the source’s public
statements. Few stories displayed an effort by the journalist to pursue the
source with follow-up questions or take questions to other relevant
sources. This was particularly the case for television and radio.
3. Failure to contextualise: Few stories were properly contextualized. It was

clear from many stories that the reporter’s aim was to report the simple
facts of an event. There was rarely an effort to go beyond these basic
details to explain the backdrop against which the event occurred,
conduct research, interview diverse sources, find connections to other
relevant stories, events, or mention recurring patterns. As such, political
stories were mostly reported as isolated incidents, with no attempt to
22
explain the significance of the event within the broader social context,
examine the impacts and mention solutions.
7.6.1 Sample stories: uninformative political reporting
Radio
The overwhelming majority of political stories on SBIS consisted simply of a
summary of what one person said, usually a person from government. Stories
rarely included a multiplicity of voices and views and were never properly
contextualized.
The major limitation regarding the quality of information in the SBIS political
coverage was the lack of analysis on the current affairs program. The current
affairs program is the forum for analysis. Its purpose is to examine stories in an in-
depth manner. But in most cases a “story” on the current affairs program
consisted of a very long, seemingly unedited, sound bite from one person, usually
a politician. This resulted in a lot of irrelevant information, but also very partial
information that was not contextualised, questioned or critiqued, or balanced
with information from other sources.
SBIS News 18:00 21 March 2007

Story: The Minister of Finance condemns civil servants for marching
to demand better pay.
Sources: Majozi Sithole, Minister of Finance.
Quality of Information: This story was just a summary of the
minister’s statement dismissing the workers’ demands. As a result
there were serious information gaps and many questions were left
unanswered. The journalist failed to answer key questions, such as,
what are the workers’ grievances, what are the current pay and
working conditions for civil servants, should the government be doing
more to meet their needs, how will this impasse be resolved? These
questions could have been answered by including more sources. But
the voices of civil servants and unions were ignored, so the
information was extremely limited and one-sided.
23
SBIS Current Affairs 18:15 13 November 2007

Story: The Minister of Enterprise and Employment signs an
investment deal with the government of Taiwan.
Sources: Lutfo Dlamini, Minister of Enterprise and Employment.
Quality of Information: This story consisted entirely of one very
lengthy sound bite from the Minister. As a result there was almost
nothing of real value in this story. It contained a lot of irrelevant
information at the expense of providing context, analysis and a
multiplicity of voices and views. Given that this story aired on the
current affairs program it was expected to go beyond just reporting
the minister’s statement to providing analysis of the issue, explaining
the investment context and assessing government’s decision. There
was no effort to answer, let alone even pose, key questions, such as,
how will the deal benefit Swaziland and what’s in it for Taiwan?
Television
Swazi TV political coverage was similarly simplistic and uninformative. Typically, a
story would consist of one or two long, uninformative sound bites that would be
presented in a vacuum, that is, without a script from the journalist explaining and
contextualising the event/isssue. This type of reporting provided a lot of irrelevant
information instead of seeking out the pertinent or meaningful information
needed to make sense of the story and its context.
It should also be noted the absence of a daily current affairs program on Swazi
TV limits its ability to provide in-depth, analytical political reporting.
Swazi TV News 20:00 14 November 2007

Story: The government launches the Poverty Reduction Strategy
Action Plan.
Sources: Absalom Dlamini, Minister of Economic Planning; Chinwe
Dike, UNDP Country Representative.
Quality of Information: There was no useful information in this
story at all. The entire report consisted of two uninformative sound
bites back-to-back. The first was a long sound bite from the Minister
in which he spoke in very vague and repetitive terms about how proud
he was to finally have the action plan. He didn’t say anything about
24
poverty in Swaziland or the content of the action plan itself. The

second sound bite from a UN representative similarly did very little
to explain the action plan. She spoke at length about the UN
instruments and mechanisms that led to the action plan. The reporter
failed to provide any substantive information on the issue of poverty
in Swaziland and how the government plans to tackle it. The very
basic questions were not answered, such as, how dire is the poverty
situation, what are the main causes, what does the action plan
propose, how will it be implemented, who’s responsible, what
timeframe is set, what do stakeholders think of the action plan and
how will it make a difference? The report was essentially meaningless.
Print
The print media provided the most informative political coverage, but it does
have the advantage of having more scope and flexibility than broadcast news
programs. However, despite this advantage, the print media was still beset with
similar information limitations to that of broadcasting. Both print publications
over-relied on event-based reporting. Few stories demonstrated an effort to
exhaust all information avenues by questioning multiple sources, researching and
contextualising the issue, and most of all scrutinising government. These
weaknesses were even glaringly evident in pieces that intended to be analytical.
Very often the most informative analytical coverage came from freelancers or
experts in a particular field who were not full-time staff writers.
Times of Swaziland 15 November 2007 page 4

Story: ‘PM doubts Ngozo was shot at 35cm radius’. The Prime
Minister defends the police service against allegations that officers
fatally shot an unarmed suspect at close range.
Sources: Absalom Themba Dlamini, Prime Minister.
Quality of Information: This report just provided a summary of the
PM’s statements. As such, the information was extremely limited.
There was no context to explain the shooting and critically no
information about what was contained in the post-mortem report that
the PM so readily discredits. There was no information to counter or
verify the PM’s claims. The PM speaks of investigations that are
complete, but we are not told any detail about the investigations such
as who conducted them and under what circumstances. There is
confusing reference to a previous coroner but no information on when
25
the current coroner will hear this case and what the likely
consequences would be for the officers involved.
Swazi Observer 20 March 2007 page 3

Story: ‘I never influenced tender board – Marwick’. A member of
parliament who owns a drug supply company denies interfering with
the drug procurement processes.
Sources: A government report commissioned by the Ministry of
Health and Social Welfare portfolio committee.
Quality of Information: This story was based entirely on a
government report that is not fully explained and contextualised. The
story concentrated on the accused MP’s defence against allegations
of corruption, but we are not told how he is said to have acted
corruptly and in what way his alleged interference lead to the drug
shortage. The story relied heavily on long quotes from the report
without explaining the content and seeking other information that
might corroborate or counter the information in the report. There
was no detail about the systems of drug procurement and how they
might be manipulated. No questions were asked of the MP’s defence.
The report’s conclusions were not explained, there was no information
about how this report will be used and what would be the likely
consequences for the accused MP.
26
7.7 Ethics
To what extent was political reporting ethical? Graph 13 shows the breakdown of
ethical and unethical political coverage. Adherence to journalism ethics was
measured using the principles listed in Appendix 2.
Graph 13: Unethical coverage (% stories)
Unethical
11%
Ethical
89%
The monitoring revealed one in ten (11%) political stories violated or ignored at
least one ethical principle.x The high incidences of simplistic and descriptive
reporting rather than in-depth, analytical reporting limited opportunities for
ethical violations. For many stories the question of ethics was not applicable.
There were just two ethical principles that were repeatedly violated:
Principle 1: journalists must seek and express the truth
Principle 2: journalists must report independently and objectively.
7.7.1 Seek and express the truth
When assessing whether a story violates principle 1, monitors looked for glaring
inaccuracies, an obvious attempt to obscure the truth or a total disregard for
seeking and reporting the truth. It is often difficult to cite clear evidence of the
two latter examples, so where there was doubt no violation was recorded.
Stories that violated principle 1 ranged from the seemingly minor instances of
poor fact checking and misleading headlines to the more serious instances of
failure to include information crucial to reporting the story truthfully.
27
‘Children’s rights not given priority’ (Swazi Observer 23 March 2007, page 12) was
an example of the failure to fact check. The story referred to two bills that were
said to be undergoing debate in parliament, yet no such bills exist.
The Swazi News ran the following inaccurate headline: “Govt buys 74 escort cars
for E20m illegally” (Swazi News 17 November 2007, page 2), yet there was no
evidence in the story to prove it was illegal, but only perhaps questionable. It was
clearly a case of using a misleading headline to sensationalise the story.
The more common form of violating principle 1 – failing to report vital information
- was evident in ‘Administrative issues cause shortage of drugs’ (Times of
Swaziland 14 March 2007, page 5), which made no mention of corruption as the
alleged cause of the national drug shortage, but allowed government sources
to say that the shortage was only due to simple “administrative issues”. There was
clearly no effort to seek the truth and get to the bottom of the story.
See further examples at 7.7.4
7.7.2 Be independent and objective
The ethical duty to be independent and objective (principle 2) is breached

when there is failure to present competing perspectives that results in prejudice
to a certain person or party, when there is a failure to maintain independence
by acting as mouthpiece for a particular group and publishing propaganda or
when there is failure to distinguish comment from fact.
Principle 2 was the most commonly violated principle. Almost every story that
violated this principle gave just one viewpoint on an event/issue where there
were clearly opposing views that ought to have been presented. Not every story
contains competing perspectives, but those that do must give representation to
all sides to avoid subjectivity and bias.
The most concerning feature of stories that failed to be independent and

objective was that almost all of them presented the views of governmentxi
without seeking the opposing views or information that would present the story
objectively. The over-reliance on stories based on one government source made
it all the more risky for the media to compromise their independence and
promote government interests. The sample stories below (See 7.7.4) demonstrate
how this uncritical approach to reporting could result in the blind delivery of
government ‘spin’.
28
7.7.3 Where was the most unethical coverage?
Table 1 shows the percentage of unethical political coverage for each medium.
Table 1: Unethical coverage by medium

Ethical violations
Medium (% stories)
Weekend Observer 20%
SBIS 16%
Swazi News 14%
Swazi Observer 11%
Swazi TV 10%
Times of Swaziland 7%
Times Sunday 6%
The Weekend Observer contained the most unethical political reporting. This
reflects the Weekend Observer’s tendency to publish government claims and
statements without questioning, verifying, critiquing, and presenting opposing
views. Most unethical stories in the Weekend Observer violated principle 2.
Similarly, unethical stories on SBIS most often breached principle 2 by ignoring

information that would challenge or oppose the government view. However, it
should be noted that this type of unethical reporting is more expected of SBIS
than of the Weekend Observer since SBIS operates as a government department
and has no pretensions of being independent from government.
Table 1 shows that only Times Sunday and Times of Swaziland were significantly
below the average for ethical violations (11%). The Times Sunday was the
medium least likely to report on government and political issues unethically.
7.7.4 Sample stories: unethical political reporting
SBIS News 18:00 19 March 2007

Story: An MP denies accusations he is involved in the drug tender
corruption scandal.
Sources: Marwick Khumalo MP
Violates principle 2: The only source was the accused MP. The story
presented his opinion only and ignored any evidence against him. The
MP was able to discredit others and put his side of the story
completely unchallenged. The report did not explain why the MP was
29
accused or given any contextual detail, it was simply a subjective

account of the MP’s defence.
Swazi TV News 20:00 30 March 2007

Story: Government consults media stakeholders on six draft media
bills.
Sources: Cyril Kunene, Principal Secretary for Ministry of Public
Service and Information.
Violates principle 1: This report was entirely based on one
government source who stated that the meeting was extremely
fruitful when, in fact, as was reported in the print media, participants
almost boycotted the meeting several times. Participants were very
critical of the content of the bills and of government’s failure to
consult widely. This was not reported on Swazi TV. The views of the
stakeholders were ignored. The Principal Secretary’s statements
were taken at face value with no effort to question or fact check.
That no effort was made to verify his account and seek the views of
other participants displayed a blatant disregard for the ethical duty
to report the event truthfully and objectively.
Times of Swaziland 13 November 2007 page 5

Story: ‘Justice PS not a member of the JSC - Government’. The
Deputy Attorney General denies accusations that the membership of
the Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional
Affairs on the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) is unconstitutional.
Sources: Mzwandile Fakudze, Deputy Attorney General.
Violates principle 2: This report was extremely unbalanced as it was
just a summary of the views of the Deputy Attorney General, with no
effort to seek competing perspectives. There was no scrutiny of his
statements and no questions posed to him or other sources that could
shed light on what is a very controversial issue. There was no
information to help explain objectively whether there is a conflict of
interest in the make-up of the JSC membership. We were only given
the subjective view of government. Any information that might
oppose this view was ignored.
30
Swazi Observer 22 March 2007 Page 6

Story: ‘Union cops not victimized – PM’. The Prime Minister denies
claims that members of the police union are being victimised by the
Royal Swaziland Police Service.
Sources: Absalom Themba Dlamini, Prime Minister.
Violates principle 2: This story only presented the very partial views of the
Prime Minister, who clearly has an interest in claiming the police service is
untroubled. There was no information to explain and verify the reports of
victimization. The claims of the officers involved, widely reported in other
media, were ignored. The report was essentially government propaganda,
allowing the PM to discredit the police union and spread the fiction that the
police service is not fractured.
7.8 Bias in political reporting
Bias was measured using three indicators – language, presentation and omission.
Language and presentation bias were noted when a story clearly used
language in a way that favoured or caused damage to a particular person or
group or where the presentation of the story showed substantial favour or
disfavour. Bias of omission was noted where the story failed to give a person or
group the opportunity to respond to a substantial allegation or to an issue that
was of great significance to them. Bias was only recorded when there was very
clear evidence of it in the story.
Graph 14 shows the percentage of biased stories in political reporting.
31
Graph 14: Biased coverage (% stories)
Biased
8%
Fair
92%
The monitoring revealed 8% of all political stories were clearly biased. The
concern is that not only is this a significant number of biased stories, but also that
the stories displayed a clear pattern of bias. The biased reports overwhelmingly
favoured government.
The most common form of bias was bias of omission. Almost every instance of
biased reporting favoured government by failing to give voice to a key person or
party opposing the government view. The tendency to base stories on one
government source significantly increased the risk of omission bias. However, not
every story relying on one government source was necessarily biased. It must be
remembered bias is only recorded when the absence of a certain person’s or
party’s views clearly disfavoured them or caused damage to their image and
favoured the party whose views were presented.
There were just a few instances of language and/or presentation bias in political
reporting. The most blatant example of such bias was on Swazi TV’s coverage of
stories involving the monarchy. Every story featuring the King or other member of
the royal family that aired on Swazi TV was presented at the top of the bulletin,
despite its questionable newsworthiness. And in some instances these reports
used exaggerated language to favourably describe the monarchy. Every story
involving the King on SBIS also ran as the lead story, regardless of its significance
or newsworthiness.
32
7.8.1 Where was the most biased coverage?
Table 2 shows the percentage of biased stories for each medium.
Table 2: Biased coverage by medium

Medium Bias (% of stories)
SBIS 17%
Weekend Observer 14%
Swazi TV 10%
Swazi Observer 9%
Swazi News 4%
Times of Swaziland 4%
Times Sunday 3%
Given that the most common form of bias was omission bias, it’s not surprising
that SBIS had the highest number of biased stories. SBIS political reporting
displayed a very clear pattern of telling the government perspective only.
It’s worth noting again that almost all biased reporting favoured government.
This was the only demonstrable pattern in biased coverage and it was evident
across all media. That is, every medium was guilty, at some point, of giving
government favourable coverage. No medium displayed a pattern of
repeatedly opposing any particular person or group.
Table 2 shows the Times publications, as with ethical adherence, had the lowest
incidences of unfair reporting.
7.8.2 Sample stories: biased political reporting
SBIS Current Affairs 18:15 14 March 2007

Story: The government spokesperson denies government is to blame
for the national drug shortage.
Sources: Percy Simelane, Government Spokesperson.
Omission bias: This report blatantly favoured government by allowing
the government spokesperson to claim, unchallenged, that government
is not responsible for the drug shortage. Any information that would
counter this claim was ignored. The obvious question is, if government
is not to blame for the drug shortage, then who is? But this question
was not even posed. There was no scrutiny of the role of government
in ensuring the drug supply, no opposing voices, and critically
33
absolutely no mention of the allegations of political interference with

the drug procurement processes.
Swazi TV News 18:00 22 March 2007

Story: The King receives letters of credence from two foreign leaders.
Sources: King Mswati III, Ambassador of Taiwan, Ambassador of
Spain.
Presentation bias: Despite having very little newsworthy content
this report was the lead story and ran for over seven minutes. It was
full of music and fanfare with excessive, repetitive footage of the
King. There was no substantive information about diplomacy and
foreign relations. It was just an event description featuring long
sound bites from the King. This presentation bias toward stories
featuring the monarchy was reinforced when the second story about
water shortages was cut short, followed by a long break in
transmission, after which the anchor returned to say, “We’re
supposed to take the following story”. The following story was about
the charity work of one of the King’s wives. The water shortage story
was returned to later in the bulletin.
Times of Swaziland 22 March 2007 page 3

Story: ‘Government workers demon-possessed – Majozi’. The
Minister of Finance dismisses workers’ demand for better pay, saying
they are demon-possessed.
Sources: Minister of Finance, Majozi Sithole; Mary Magwaza,
Senator.
Omission bias: This report favoured government by just presenting
the government argument and ignoring the opposing view from the
workers. Both government sources paint the workers in a negative
light, claiming they do not deserve more pay and that they are up to
no good staging demonstrations and even going so far as to suggest
they are evil. The workers were not given a chance to respond to
government’s very one-sided comments.
34
Weekend Observer 17-18 March 2007 page 9

Story: ‘Police Commissioner, DPC meet staff associations’. The
Police Commissioner and his deputy meet with the police service staff
association to discuss pay and working conditions.
Sources: Vusi Masuku, Royal Swaziland Police Service PRO.
Omission bias: Despite this story involving a very contentious issue
we are only given the views of the police service management. The
opposing views from police officers and unions are ignored. The PRO
claims the service is not victimizing officers who join the union and is,
in fact, doing all it can to ensure good pay and working conditions.
This portrays the service in a good light, while ignoring the views of
officers who claim the service is not ensuring fair conditions and is
victimising union members.
7.8.3 Favourable bias vs critical coverage
To what extent was the pattern of biased stories favouring government in

political coverage intentional? Bias in the media can very often occur
unintentionally. A lack of objectivity and independence in reporting could be
the result of a lazy or inexperienced approach to sourcing, researching,
information gathering and fact checking. Biased reporting can simply be put
down to poor journalistic skills. Even if there is a distinct pattern in biased
reporting, we can’t definitively say it’s purposeful because it can be the result of
unconscious societal assumptions that shape reporters’ and editors’ decision-
making.
Assessing the media’s intention in biased reporting does not lie within the scope
of this research. However, while we cannot monitor a journalist’s intention, it is
worthwhile to examine to what extent the media included reporting that was
critical of government. If a particular medium not only produced favourable
coverage of government but also avoided any coverage that might criticise
government, then we could reasonably assume that there was an element of
deliberate bias.
Broadcasting provided the least critical coverage of government. The print

media does have more scope for critical coverage through features, analysis
and opinion pieces. But even just comparing news stories across print and
broadcasting, it was clear both Swazi TV and SBIS had a much greater tendency
than the print media to focus heavily on positive stories about government
activities and initiatives, and both Swazi TV and SBIS relied almost exclusively on
government sources. This limited opportunities for critical reporting on
government. Even when there were stories that would be expected to include
35
information critical of government, for example, the government response to the

drought or the police union dispute, both SBIS and Swazi TV would ignore the
criticisms and summarise government’s views only.
It should be mentioned that Swazi TV’s avoidance of critical coverage was

slightly less predictable than SBIS. For example, Swazi TV did run a story on
workers grievances against government that sourced the Swaziland Federation
of Trade Unions (SFTU) and the Swaziland Federation of Labour (SFL). But that was
a very rare exception to the norm. SBIS only mentioned criticisms of government
if they came from within government, for example, if they were criticisms aired
during parliamentary debate.
The print media, by contrast, did not appear to systematically avoid critical
coverage of government. The Times, in particular, ran a number of stories that
aired criticisms of government activities or brought attention to government
failures and crises. But interestingly, a substantial number of critical stories
published in the Times were not run in the Observer at all. The following are
examples of stories critical of government published in the Times but not in the
Observer:
criticisms of the PM over his handling of a fatal police shooting of an

unarmed suspect;
attacks on the Finance Minister from civil servants;
criticisms of government budget decisions from NGOs;
criticisms of government from police union members;
attacks on government for its failure to respond to the TB crisis; and
attacks on government for mismanaging the OVC bursary.
The Observer did not avoid criticisms of government entirely, but it ran
substantially fewer criticisms of government than did the Times. In addition, Times
editorials and opinion pieces often included scathing attacks on government.
Whereas commentary pieces in the Observer were very scarce and when they
were published they were rarely critical of government.
It’s noteworthy that no medium ran criticisms of the King.
36
7.9 Treatment of two significant stories
The following compares the media’s coverage of two significant political stories
from the monitoring period.
7.9.1 Story I: the police union
The story: Efforts by police officers to form a union met with opposition from
the senior management of the Royal Swaziland Police Service (RSPS) and
government. The union leader was promptly sacked from the service and
reports emerged of union members being victimised and harassed by the
RSPS. Union members decided to challenge the government in the High
Court for recognition of their right to form a union. At the time of monitoring
the court was yet to deliver a judgment.
Radio
Coverage of this story on the SBIS evening news bulletin was extremely selective
and unbalanced. Notably the story was never covered on the current affairs
program.
Sources: All stories were single-sourced, using government sources

only - the Prime Minister, the King and senior management of the
RSPS. The voices of the officers and other unionists were ignored.
Government sources were never questioned or had their
statements critiqued or opposed.
Information: The content was very selective. All the stories simply
gave summaries of government statements. There was no mention
of what prompted the union formation (the pay rise discrepancies),
no reports of the victimization and harassment of union members,
no mention of the rights of the officers or the constitutional issues
involved. No story scrutinized government’s handling of the matter.
Ethics: All stories, except one, were extremely unbalanced,

subjective accounts of the government’s position. The SBIS
coverage thus clearly favoured government.
Television
There was no coverage of this story on the Swazi TV evening news bulletin during
the monitoring period.
37
Print
The print coverage, especially that of the Times, was significantly more
informative and ethical than radio coverage. The Times of Swaziland provided
three times more coverage of the story than the Swazi Observer.xii
Sources: The Swazi Observer relied solely on government sources -

the Prime Minister, senior management of the RSPS and, in one
instance, the King. Not a single Observer story gave voice to the
police union members or others representing their interests. All
stories were single-sourced.
The Times performed much better by providing more diverse

sources and most often including at least two sources per story. The
Times sources included police union members, political activists
and other unions. The Times did often source officialdom from the
RSPS, but it was usually balanced with the voice a union member.
Information: The main weakness of the print coverage was the lack
of information and analysis. The overwhelming majority of reports
were just event descriptions. The coverage lacked context and
crucial information such as specific details about the working
conditions and pay in the police service to understand the causes
of the union formation, examination of the workers’ rights issues and
the crucial constitutional aspects of the story, examination of the
role unions play in police services and analysis of the government’s
position and handling of the matter.
Even opinion pieces and editorials lacked analysis and inquiry and
were often uninformative. There was one opinion piece (‘Applause
for police union’, Weekend Observer 17-18 March 2007, page 19)
that stood out because it did make an effort to contextualise the
story by looking at the broader causes and consequences. But in
general, analysis and opinion pieces displayed a poverty of
information and a lack of critical thinking and, as such, the print
media failed to foster meaningful argument and debate on the
police union issue.
Ethics: The Times coverage was ethical and fair. The Observer’s
coverage, however, often favoured government. More than half of
the stories in the Observer were unbalanced because they only
reported the very partial views of government, giving no
opportunity to the union members or those representing their
interests to put their side.
38
Conclusion
The most informative, comprehensive and fair coverage of the police union story
was found in the Times. But the Times did have major weaknesses with its quality
of information and its lack of inquiry and analysis. Superficial, event-based
reporting dominated. Reporters often failed to fully explain and engage with the
core issues and rarely questioned or scrutinised the authorities.
The Observer provided very little coverage for such a politically important issue
and its reporting was simplistic and often biased towards government.
The most unethical and least informative coverage was on SBIS, while Swazi TV
ignored the story.
7.9.2 Story II: the Mzikayise trial
The Story: The family of the late chief, Mzikayise Ntshangase, took
the government to court over its refusal to allow the chief to be buried
at his birthplace. The government and traditional authorities objected
on the grounds that the chief had been evicted from the area by King
Sobhuza II. The High Court ruled in favour of the family but
government appealed the decision. The Supreme Court upheld the
High Court ruling, but traditional authorities then threatened to
reject the court’s decision, posing a threat to the rule of law and
sparking fears of violence.
Radio
The SBIS coverage was very limited, especially given the political significance of
the story. All reports completely ignored the political dimensions that made the
story newsworthy. When it was reported it was given very little prominence. On
the day of the Supreme Court judgment it was not the lead story as might be
expectedxiii, and there was no coverage of the court’s ruling on the current
affairs program, which instead ran stories about government programs on
poverty and soil erosion.
Sources: Most reporting was sourced from statements made by the

judges and lawyers. But in one instance the traditional authorities
opposing the burial were sourced as well as one member of the
Mzikayise family. However, these sources were not directly
questioned about the pertinent issues.
Information: All reports were simple event descriptions with no

context and no information to explain the political aspects of the
case, its significance and possible consequences. The SBIS
coverage never mentioned the threat to rule of law and
39
independence of the judiciary, the tension between traditional

authorities and the judiciary and the threats of violence. Critically,
there was no information to explain the legal dimensions, that is, no
explanation of the court’s judgment and why government lost the
case. It must be noted that, given the current affairs program did
not cover the story, there was no scope for in-depth analysis.
Ethics: The stories themselves did not clearly breach any ethical
principles, but given that the coverage overall completely ignored
the political dimensions, failed to explain why government lost the
case, and never mentioned the widespread criticisms of
government for pursuing the case, it does raise serious questions
about the station’s commitment to “seek and express the truth” in
its reporting. The failure to canvass the above information had the
effect of suppressing criticisms of government and the traditional
authorities.
Television
Swazi TV’s coverage was similarly limited. The basic details of the court case
were reported clearly, but there was no context, no mention of the political and
legal issues and the significance and ramifications of the case were ignored.
Sources: As with all event-based reporting the sources were

restricted. Most reports were based on statements from the lawyers
and judges. The traditional authorities opposing the burial were
sourced once. The Mzikayise family itself was never sourced.
Information: Coverage lacked context and key information was

ignored. Reports often contained irrelevant and superficial details
instead of providing more comprehensive information to help
understand the political and legal issues. Crucial details such as the
threat to the rule of law and the concerns of violence were never
mentioned.
Ethics: As with the SBIS coverage, there was no clear ethical

breach in any particular story, but the use of very selective
information in the overall coverage where vital information was
ignored and criticisms of government not reported casts serious
doubt on the commitment to seek the truth and report the story in
full.
Print
The majority of print coverage appeared in the Times, which ran three times as
many stories as the Observer. The Swazi Observer’s chief editor wrote on 8
November that the paper had deliberately “restrained itself”xiv from commenting
40
on the case because it was inappropriate to do so while it was still before the
courts. But even in the week after the judgment was released the Swazi Observer
continued to restrain from commenting. The Weekend Observer never ran a
story on the case during the monitoring period, despite the climax of the case
occurring during that same period.
Sources: Most stories in the Observer did include multiple sources

that represented both sides of the case, but a lot more space was
given to the sources representing government and the traditional
authorities. ‘Govt loses Mzikayise appeal’ (13 November 2007,
page 3) and ‘Stop Mzikayise burial’ (16 November 2007, page 4)
were the two main stories in the Observer’s coverage and they
were both devoted almost entirely to the arguments of
government and the traditional authorities with very little
meaningful attention given to the opposing side. Had other stories
in the Observer sourced the Mzikayise camp it might have
balanced out, but these two stories were the only instances where
the Mzikayise representatives were sourced and they weren’t given
the chance to explain their side of the story and the legal merits of
their case.
The Times, on the other hand, relied on a much more diverse group
of sources and balanced its sources where necessary. Times
reporters didn’t just rely on the lawyers, judges and traditional
authorities, but widened their pool to include political activists,
community people who knew Mzikayise, the Law Society, the
traditional Prime Minister and civil rights campaigners. The Times
also demonstrated effort to seek comment from government.
Information: The Times provided the most informative print

coverage. Where the Observer tended to skirt around the key
issues, the Times made an effort to address crucial aspects of the
case such as the independence of the judiciary and the threat to
the rule of law. The Times coverage included criticisms of the
traditional authorities and of government and made some effort to
explain the background and history of the case and contextualise
the issues. Some reports made reference to a recent breakdown of
the rule of law in Swaziland, the complication of the dual legal
system and problems with the political system.
But the Times did have some major gaps in its coverage. Most
notably there was no substantial legal analysis and no effort to
investigate, let alone query, unexplained or curious aspects of the
story, such as the causes of Mzikayise’s eviction and other
anomalies. The details of the court case were often poorly
explained, with reporters relying too much on direct quotes from
lawyers and judges without removing legal jargon. No report or
41
commentary in the Times provided comprehensive legal analysis of

the High Court judgment. The staff writers focused too much on
event description, over-relying on summaries of public statements
without synthesising and contextualising the information. The best
analytical coverage came from guest writers and freelancers but
these commentators were very weak on legal analysis. They
confined themselves to moral commentary instead.
The Swazi Observer’s reporting was much more superficial than the
Times. The Observer avoided the key political and legal issues. It
gave no analytical coverage and the information was sometimes
selective. For example, a report just after the Supreme Court
judgment (‘Govt loses Mzikayise appeal’ 13 November 2007, page
3) concentrated almost entirely on explaining the government’s
justification for its appeal without explaining why the government
lost the appeal or the merits of the opposing side’s argument.
Ethics: The Times reporting was fair and ethical. But the Observer’s
failure to report the story in full, balance its information and allow
comment on the case raises questions about its editorial
independence and commitment to reporting stories as truthfully as
possible.
Conclusion
The Times of Swaziland clearly provided the most comprehensive and balanced
reporting on the Mzikayise case. However, its analytical coverage had significant
weaknesses. The Observer’s coverage was superficial and sometimes partial
towards government. Similarly the reporting on Swazi TV and SBIS was selective
and uninformative.
42
7.10 Reporting corruption
Since one of the main functions of the media is to act as a public watchdog to
ensure accountability and transparency in government, it was pertinent to
isolate corruption coverage for special analysis.
Which medium provided the most coverage of corruption? Graph 15 compares

the amount of attention given to corruption stories by each media house.
Graph 15: Corruption coverage by medium (% of stories)
Swazi News
Times Sunday
Times of Swaziland
Swazi TV
Swazi Observer
Weekend Observer
SBIS
0% 5% 10% 15% 20%
The Times group of newspapers clearly provided more corruption coverage than
any other medium. The Times had more than double the number of corruption
stories than the other print medium, the Observer. It’s expected that the
weekend newspapers (Swazi News and Times Sunday) would give the most
corruption coverage because weekend publications have the scope to provide
lengthier, in-depth investigative stories, which is often the type of story required
when reporting on corruption. It’s noteworthy, then, that the Observer’s
weekend publication had less corruption coverage than even the daily
Observer.
The main corruption stories that were covered across all media, to varying
degrees, were an E50m fraud case, a drug procurement scandal, and a story of
conflict of interest at the parastatal, Swaziland Electricity Company. The Times
had, by far, the greatest diversity in the type of corruption stories. Times
publications covered stories that were not reported in other media, such as
stories about corruption at parastatals and government departments, and stories
of individual MPs accused of corruption.
43
SBIS, Swazi TV and the Observer exclusively covered corruption stories that were
already in the public domain. That is, their corruption stories were based on court
cases, public statements, discussions in parliament or details of parliamentary
reports, rather than their own investigations. They merely reported on
events/issues that were already public. The Times also relied heavily on stories
that were already in the public domain, but occasionally they did demonstrate
some effort to unearth corruption stories.
Despite the Times making greater effort to provide diverse corruption coverage,
their quality of reporting in corruption stories was not markedly better than the
quality of corruption reporting in other media. In general, corruption reporting
across the board was very poor. Corruption stories from all media were beset
with the usual characteristics of political reporting. That is, they were most often
superficial event summaries that missed vital information, failed to scrutinise the
authorities and probe the real issue, provided little context, if any, and failed to
seek diverse sources.
7.11 State vs private media
Did the private media in Swaziland provide more diverse, informative and
balanced political reporting than the state media?
When comparing the political coverage of SBIS, Swazi TV, the Observer and the
Times, distinct patterns did emerge.
SBIS and Swazi TV had the most in common. Their reporting was dominated by
uninformative descriptions of government activities, cluttered with long sound
bites from government ministers or representatives. Their coverage of politically
sensitive stories was either non-existent or very bland and uncritical. And both
stations had frequent and blatant examples of bias favouring government. The
monitoring revealed that SBIS, in particular, did not display editorial
independence in its political coverage.
The Times, widely described as the only independent newspaper in the country,
very clearly had the best political coverage. Compared to Swazi TV, SBIS and the
Observer, the Times political coverage contained the:
Most diverse voices;

Most informative and balanced coverage of politically sensitive stories;
Most stories critical of government;
Lowest percentage of reporting favouring government;
Most reporting on corruption.
Although the Swazi Observer is owned by a private entity, it is commonly

perceived to be a state newspaper. This study demonstrates why that
perception exists. The Observer’s coverage of political stories was more akin to
44
that of the state broadcasters, than that of the Times. The following
characteristics were evident in the Observer’s political coverage:
Over-reliance on stories containing government sources only and

avoidance of progressive voices;
Very little coverage on politically sensitive stories;
Avoidance of information critical of government;
High percentage of biased stories favouring government;
Very little reporting on corruption.
The monitoring revealed that the level of editorial independence at the

Observer is questionable, despite the Observer’s status as a private publication.
45
8 Conclusion
A typical political story in the Swazi media was a basic event description,
reported by a male journalist, containing one male government source, and, if
biased, favoured government. Coverage of government and political issues was
largely superficial and uncritical and captured a limited range of views and
voices.
The breadth of content in political coverage was limited. Important political

issues such as poverty, HIV/AIDS and democracy were marginalized because
political reporting was reactive, that is, it was largely determined by what
government said or did. Most political stories were simple descriptions of
government statements or activities. Thus rather than questioning the
government’s agenda and trying to reshape it, the media’s political coverage
generally reinforced the government’s agenda.
The media across the board displayed a chronic lack of information and
analysis. The focus on describing events rather than examining issues was a key
reason for this lack of information, as well as the over-reliance on single-sourced
stories and the failure to research, ask the pertinent questions and contextualise
the story.
Almost every instance of biased political reporting, regardless of the medium,

favoured government. Single-sourcing also proved to be the root cause of much
of the unbalanced political reporting. The tendency to base stories on one
government source increased the risk of biased reporting that favoured
government.
Gender balance was sorely lacking in political coverage. Women’s voices were
almost non-existent. Political stories were almost exclusively based on the voices
and opinions of men.
The dominance of government voices also severely limited the diversity of views
expressed in political reporting. Again, the habit of single-sourcing meant there
was little effort to seek out the voices of ordinary citizens, expert analysts and
those who might oppose the government view.
The media’s tendency to focus on government voices only was the key
contributing factor to the amount of unethical reporting. Telling only the
government view sometimes resulted in very subjective reporting where the
media simply acted as a mouthpiece for government.
Comparing political coverage across the different media revealed that the best
political reporting was found in the Times publications. Notably, the Times
reporting had the least ethical violations and the least bias. And yet the Times
46
did fall short in many areas. Most obviously the Times did not sufficiently
contextualise political stories, often failed to provide diverse voices and lacked
depth of information and analysis.
Classic features of state media reporting were clearly evident in the political
coverage of SBIS and Swazi TV. Most stories were very simplistic descriptions of
government projects and policies, concentrating on the positive aspects with no
critique or opposing comment. The Observer, too, had a tendency to focus on
government views, avoid scrutiny and criticism of government and gave scant
coverage of politically sensitive stories.
With such a chronic lack of diversity and context across all political coverage,
the media failed to foster meaningful political debate and promote critical
thinking about government and political issues.
8.1 Behind the findings
Weaknesses in the media’s coverage are often blamed on lack of skills and
experience among media practitioners. And indeed, many features of political
reporting revealed in this study demonstrate that the media need to sharpen
specific skills.
Journalists need to improve their information gathering and learn to test the
information they collect. The ability to research, look for verification and/or points
of opposition, and ask the most probing and pertinent questions was rarely
evident. Journalists must do better at recognising a source’s bias and work to
balance that bias rather than let their story fall prey to it. They must learn how to
provide context and analysis – the why and the how - while remaining objective.
Improvement in these areas would ensure the media do a better job of getting
behind government spin and holding the authorities to account – perhaps the
two most important requirements of strong political reporting.
But beyond the media itself, there are some crucial aspects of the environment
in which the media operate that have a particular bearing on the quality of
political journalism.
The restricted media industry limits the scope and effectiveness of political
reporting. As this study demonstrates, the government monopoly on
broadcasting works very well for government, providing it with a mouthpiece to
promote and justify its interests. But this does not work well for media consumers.
Government’s continued hold over SBIS and Swazi TV and its failure to admit
commercial and community operators into the market leaves media consumers
with no source of truly independent political reporting on radio or TV.
47
The lack of diversity in the print sector also deprives media consumers. As we’ve
seen, when it comes to the quality of political reporting the Times has little real
competition from the Observer. This effectively leaves consumers with just one
source of political journalism that has no links to government, but a source that is
probably weakened by the lack of real competition.
The restricted political environment also weakens political journalism. The political
system in Swaziland does not cater for political parties. As a result the
government effectively has no opposition and there are no clear groupings
based on ideological beliefs. The government itself does not put forward clear
positions on political matters. What bearing does this have on political reporting?
First, it means that when the media relies so heavily on government sources they
are often disseminating one homogenous voice. Whereas if government
included an opposition and other political parties, then relying almost exclusively
on government sources would not be so problematic as it would, in fact, provide
a multiplicity of views which in turn provides balance in reporting.
Second, the lack of clear ideological camps in government means there is little
meaningful debate within the political sphere itself and that makes it more
difficult for the media to generate political debate.
There are two other notable aspects of the political environment that can restrict
the media’s political reporting. The first is that information sharing between
government and the public is extremely poor. There is no obligation on
government to proactively disclose certain types of information that the media
ought to have ready access to. This obviously hampers the media’s ability to
report important political stories.
The second aspect is that people in public office generally do not accept that
they ought to tolerate a higher level of scrutiny and criticism than the ordinary
citizen. This is especially evident when politicians demand apologies from the
media, take retributive action of some sort or file defamation suits when the
media reports critically about their public activities. This can discourage the
media from reporting certain stories and encourages uncritical reporting.
8.2 Recommendations
I Strengthen capacity of media practitioners
Provide skills training to working journalists and editors on areas such as

conducting research, fact checking, interviewing sources, balancing
stories and adding context and analysis to stories.
Provide education programs for the media on political issues and

matters of governance.
48
II Diversify the broadcasting industry and introduce public broadcasting
Enact legislation that enshrines the three-tier system of broadcasting

(public, commercial and community);
Establish an independent broadcasting regulator;
Transform state broadcasters into public service broadcasters that are

legally protected from political interference;
Provide skills training to broadcast journalists on the role and ethos of

public service broadcasting.
III Introduce effective self-regulation mechanisms
Establish an active self-regulatory body to encourage more ethical

and fair reporting.
Inform the public of the role of the self-regulatory body and their
avenues of complaint.
49
Appendix 1
The Swaziland Media Industry
Medium Name Description

Radio Swaziland Broadcasting State-owned and controlled national
and Information Services broadcaster. SBIS operates as a
(SBIS) government department under the
Ministry of Public Service and
Information
Voice of the Church Independent religious broadcaster.
(VOC) VOC is licensed to broadcast religious
content only.
Television Swazi TV Semi-independent national
broadcaster. Swazi TV is registered as a
parastatal.
Channel Swazi Private broadcaster operated by a
member of the royal family.
Newspaper Times of Swaziland (daily) Independent publication owned and
Swazi News (weekly) published by the private company,
Times Sunday (weekly) African Echo Pty Ltd.
Swazi Observer (daily) Owned by Tibiyo TakaNgwane, a
Weekend Observer private company that operates as a
(weekly) trust fund for the King. Though
technically an independent
newspaper, the Observer is largely
viewed as a state publication.
Magazine The Nation (monthly) Independent publication owned and
published by Swaziland Independent
Publishers Pty Ltd.
Kaleidoscope Independent publication owned and
(bi-monthly) published by Knotell Co. Pty Ltd.
Note: There are other small privately owned print players that publish
sporadically, such as, weekly sports newspapers and special interest magazines.
50
Appendix 2
Adherence to journalism ethics is measured using the following nine ethical

principles.
1. Seek and express the truth.

2. Be independent and objective.
3. Minimise harm.
4. Children are afforded special protection.
5. Avoid stereotypes.
6. Be gender proactive and consider the gender angles to all stories.
7. Violence against women and child abuse are fundamental human
rights abuses.
8. Respect and engage with cultural and sexual practices.
9. Be aware of the HIV/AIDS dimensions to gender-based violence
and child abuse stories.
i The Media Monitoring Project is a human rights NGO based in South Africa specializing
in media content research.
ii The selected radio programs could only be monitored every second day for this period
due to technical constraints.

iii The English bulletins are direct translations of the siSwati versions.
iv News Diet Study, MISA Swaziland 2006
v News Diet Study, MISA Swaziland 2006
vi A source is a person or document that is directly or indirectly quoted in the story.
vii News Diet Study, MISA Swaziland 2006
viii Graph 7 does not include secondary sources, such as parliamentary reports and court
documents. Secondary sources accounted for almost 30% of all sources in political
stories.
ix There are over 15 categories including government, head of state, traditional
authorities, civil society, political parties, unions, funders and academia.

x Monitors can only record one ethical violation per story, so for stories that violated
multiple principles only the most egregious violation was recorded.

xi Government here refers to all governing organs, that is, the legislature, head of state,
traditional authorities, parastatals, the judiciary as well as all government departments.

xii The Times has two weekend publications, while the Observer has one.
xiii The lead story was about government’s poverty reduction plan.
xiv ‘Mzikayise case: acid test for justice’, Swazi Observer, 8 November 2007, page 4
© MISA Swaziland 2008
51

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His Master’s Voice:

Political Reporting in Swaziland

Written by Mary Ellen Rogers

3 What is political reporting?....................................................................................4

5.1 Research tool ......................................................................................................... 6

5.2 What media was monitored?.............................................................................. 6

5.3 Time period............................................................................................................. 6

5.4 Limitations ............................................................................................................... 6

6 Executive summary ...............................................................................................7

7.2 Origin of stories..................................................................................................... 12

7.3 Sex of journalists ................................................................................................... 13

7.4 Story sources......................................................................................................... 14

7.5 Type ....................................................................................................................... 20

7.6 Quality of Information ......................................................................................... 21

7.7.4 Sample stories: unethical political reporting ...............................................................29

7.8 Bias in political reporting..................................................................................... 31

7.9 Treatment of two significant stories................................................................... 37

7.10 Reporting corruption ....................................................................................... 43

7.11 State vs private media .................................................................................... 44

8.1 Behind the findings .............................................................................................. 47

This is a study on political reporting in Swaziland over a five-week period during

A quantitative analysis of political reporting was undertaken covering aspects

This study also includes a qualitative assessment of the depth of information

3 What is political reporting?

National government includes the executive, legislature and judiciary and

A political issue refers to matters of government policy, law, government

A police car breaks down on the highway. Not a political story.

A judge sentences a thief. Not a political story.

A judge sentences a corrupt official. A political story.

Determine what policies, issues and debates are covered in political

Assess the degree to which political reporting is fair, accurate and

Examine the extent to which political reporting is informative, in-depth

Determine who speaks in political stories;

Assess the diversity of voices in political stories;

Examine to what extent women speak in political stories;

Determine to what extent political reporting is sourced from a variety of

Assess the media’s treatment of two significant political stories;

Determine the gender breakdown of journalists reporting on politics;

Compare aspects of political reporting on TV, print and radio;

5.1 Research tool

5.2 What media was monitored?

See Appendix 1 for a list of the Swaziland media industry.

5.3 Time period

Period 1: 12 March 2007 – 1 April 12 2007ii

Period 2: 5 November 2007 – 18 November 2007

These periods were chosen at random.

Exclusion of Channel Swazi: Channel Swazi, the smaller of the two

Restricted sample of broadcasting content: Broadcasting content

Exclusion of The Nation: This monthly magazine contains a lot of political

#1 Political coverage lacked diversity: Four topics – labour/workers rights,

#2 Regional stories were severely lacking: Political reporting gave minimal

#3 Female journalists were underrepresented: Female journalists were

#5 The majority of political reporting was single-sourced. 55% of political

#7 Voices of women absent: Political reporting was heavily dominated by

#9 Government voices dominated: Political reporting was dominated by the

#10 Government spoke most frequently about development: When

#11 Voices of experts absent: The representation of experts and independent

Graph 1: Topics of political stories - Top 20

0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14%

The stories about corruption included coverage of a drug procurement scandal

These four topics – labour/workers’ rights, justice system, development and

Stories about Swaziland conflict were reports about political demonstrations,

7.2 Origin of stories

Graph 2: Origin of political stories

His Master's Voice, Political Reporting Swaziland 2007 - MISA

His Master's Voice, Political Reporting Swaziland 2007 - MISA