Juba press cards. Photo:Brigitte Sins/IMS

An unusually moderate tone characterised Sudanese media’s coverage in the run up to the elections between 11-15 April 2010. Only in the days leading up to the elections did the number of “hate speech” incidents increase dramatically  

By Helle Nordberg, IMS

According to the Fourth Sudan Media Monitoring Report the tone used by the media changed from moderate to more aggressive between 21 March – 9 April during the last there weeks prior to the elections. These are some of the findings of the fourth media monitoring report produced by IMS and the Sudan Media and Election Consortium. 

Tone moderate as well as aggressive

Although the general tone of the Sudanese media was characterised as moderate during most of the election campaign, the tone changed in the last three weeks before the elections. Reflecting the intensified political campaigning, the number of hate speech cases in the media escalated dramatically to 259 cases from 168 cases recorded between 13 February – 21 March. Examples include candidates in the Lakes States threatening to shoot citizens if they did not vote for them and statements by political actors and journalists such as “we will cut their [observers’] fingers off” or general calls for or against an Islamic state.

- What is positively surprising is that the media were able to maintain a moderate tone throughout the election campaign given the expectations of a very tense period, says Boboya James Edimond, Coordinator of the media monitoring project in Juba, Southern Sudan for Norwegian People’s Aid.

-  However, it is not surprising that the incidents of hate speech in media – which can help to incite violence – appeared in the days before the elections, he continues. 

- The paper The Citizen printed an article about an independent candidate which included hate speech. This angered the candidate’s supporters to the point where there was a strong and heated collective call for the paper to issue a public apology to the candidate. This the paper did, says Boboya James Edimond.  

Partial reporting

The elections overwhelmingly dominated the news agenda in Sudanese media between 21 March-9 April in the weeks leading up to the elections.

Both print and broadcast media were rife with stories about threats of election boycott and withdrawal made by opposition candidates and parties, but continued to concentrate on the two main parties NCP and SPLM. Each received respectively 41 and 24 per cent of the overall print space and close to 40 per cent of the airtime on radio.

Grace period ignored

The campaign period ending 9 April was followed by a day of silence on 10 April on which no campaigning in the media or public space was allowed. This day was largely violated by the media which continued to publish and broadcast campaign messages, mainly from the ruling parties, according to the monitoring results.

- Many media and politicians chose to ignore the grace period. But in fact many were not aware of the law stipulating a day of no campaigning, so the next step is to raise awareness of this law, says Abbas Al Tigani, coordinator of the media monitoring project in Khartoum, Northern Sudan for the Sudanese Development Initiative (SUDIA).

Female candidates continued to lose the battle for media exposure during the election campaign. In the latest monitoring period between 21 March and 9 April, female candidates and women’s issues only featured in 6 per cent of the election coverage on TV and radio compared with the 94 per cent airtime held by their male counterparts.

Monitoring has positive impact on media

According to the project coordinators in both Northern and Southern Sudan, the media monitoring project has had a positive impact on Sudanese media.

- Reactions in media have been positive, especially on the media’s reporting. Many journalists have discussed the media monitoring results amongst themselves looking at the percentages. We have also held a roundtable with media actors in Khartoum to look at the results together, says Abbas Al Tigani.

In Southern Sudan, Boboya James Edimond describes how media who are not part of the media monitoring project have asked for the opportunity to have their coverage monitored to benefit from the lessons learnt that spring from the results.

This is the fourth report released by the Sudan media and Elections Consortium. For more information, please contact International Media Support (IMS), tel. (45) 88327005 or email: ld[snabela]i-m-s.dk or visit: www.i-m-s.dk.

Read the Arabic version here.  

Notes to the editor

The Sudan Media and Elections project is implemented by the Sudan Media and Elections Consortium (SMEC), a group of national and international organisations with expertise in media support. The SMEC carries out media monitoring of four TV stations, seventeen radio channels and thirteen newspapers in Sudan on a daily basis.

Media Monitoring Units began their activities on 13 February 2010 at the opening of the election campaign. Monitoring will continue until the end of May 2010 to assess post election coverage.

The Media and Elections Project, funded by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), is implemented by the Sudan Media and Elections Consortium, a group of national and international organisations with expertise in media support. The group comprises the Sudanese Development Initiative (SUDIA), International Media Support (IMS), the Arab Working Group for Media Monitoring (AWG), Fojo Media Institute, Norwegian Peoples Aid (NPA), and Osservatorio di Pavia.