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Isles state media scores poorly...
2005-09-23 07:35:18
By Issa Yussuf, Zanzibar
Zanzibar state-owned media has the worst record on election coverage since the election campaigns kicked off early last month, Tanzania Election Monitoring Project (TEMP) 2005, reported yesterday.
The TEMP report that was unveiled yesterday and covers the period between September 2 and 8, shows that Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) gets the lion’s share of the airtime allocated to elections compared with other political parties.
TEMP report, which was presented to journalists attending the BBC/MCT workshop in Zanzibar, tallied the time allocated to political parties on Television Zanzibar (TvZ) as follows: CCM 5,500 seconds, CUF 370 seconds, NCCR-Mageuzi 900 seconds, PPT-Maendeleo 900 seconds, TADEA 900 seconds and Safina 115 seconds and the others were not allocated air time at all.
As for Sauti ya Tanzania Zanzibar (STZ): CCM had 34 items aired, CUF eight items, NCCR-Mageuzi two items, Safina three items and SAU and TADEA had one item each aired.
Zanzibar Leo, a state-owned daily newspaper, published 20 items on CCM and three items on CUF.
NCCR-Mageuzi and NRA had their items published only once in the paper in the same period.
Contacted, the Zanzibar Electoral Commission (ZEC) Information Director, Ali Mwinyikai, said the report was misleading.
Mwinyikai told Vicky Ntetema, the co-ordinator of the training programme: ’I don’t believe the report because it covers the period before the campaign started on September 5.’
The director was unhappy with the nomination of participants for the training programme, saying it was wrong for BBC/MCT to work directly with the Zanzibar Press Club in choosing participants in the workshop.
TEMP report comes at the time when opposition parties have been complaining of being given a coverage black out.
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