27 October 2009
Maputo — The Mozambican chapter of the regional press freedom body MISA (Media Institute of Southern Africa) has praised the Mozambican media for its coverage of the election campaign that ran from 13 September to last Sunday.
A statement issued by the National Governing Council of MISA-Mozambique declared that the media, "guided by criteria of independence, impartiality and rigour", had acted in line with "high professional and ethical standards. The media had thus "contributed not only to the timely publication of news items about the campaign, but also to voter education".
The statement singles out Radio Mozambique for praise, particularly its morning chat show "Café de Manha".
"With the radio's live broadcasts, representatives of the various competing forces were able to present their manifestos to the electorate, and had the opportunity to enter into dialogue with the listeners, through phone calls, e-mail and text messages", MISA noted.
Nonetheless, MISA-Mozambique also criticized "some of the media who were lacking in rigour in some of the information they disseminated, and thus left something of a stain on the selfless work of journalists".
But the only one of the media criticized by name is the independent weekly "Savana" for its blunder last week when it claimed that the company hired to produce the software for voter tabulation, Labsoft, is unregistered and thus illegal. It was very easy for other journalists to show that Labsoft was legally registered over a year ago, and that there is nothing illegal about the National Elections Commission (CNE) using its services.
MISA raps "Savana" over the knuckles saying it should have undertaken "more exhaustive investigation".
True enough - but was "Savana" really the worst offender? What about the right-wing weekly "CanalMoz", which carried a screaming front page headline claiming that the ruling Frelimo Party is planning a coup d'etat?
Or the Sunday paper "Domingo", which has been running a campaign of lies and slander against the European Union election observation mission ? Some of the claims by "Domingo" were shown by AIM a couple of weeks ago to be just as untruthful as those of "Savana".
The MISA statement concludes with a call to journalists "to continue with the same levels of commitment", guided by the country's press law and by the Code of Conduct for Election Coverage which the main media have all voluntarily signed.
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