Report on Media Coverage and Violations of Article 68 of the Parliamentary Electoral Law No. 25/2008. Report No. (1)

Transcription

1 Republic of Lebanon Ministry of interior and Municipalities Supervisory Commission on the Electoral Campaign Report on Media Coverage and Violations of Article 68 of the Parliamentary Electoral Law No. 25/2008 Report No. (1) Coverage Period: 14 to 18 April

2 Introduction The Supervisory Commission on the Electoral Campaign was formed by virtue of Parliamentary Election Law No. 25/2008. The Commission is entrusted to carry out a number of tasks pertaining to the supervision of the Media performance and their dealing with candidates and political authorities in order to guarantee fair and balanced media coverage with respect to observing promotion, paid advertisement, and electoral spending. The Commission started its actual work at the beginning of the current year. First, it worked on equipping its premises as well as recruiting and training a staff to supervise the Media pursuant to modern methodologies used in developed countries and adopted by international organizations working in elections. The commission also worked on equipping the Media supervision room and provided all special recording devices. The commission has currently all needed reception and storage devices, electronic processing programs, and a work team. It is able to produce electoral media coverage reports and know the extent to which the Media adhere to the balanced coverage of the candidates and political authorities electoral activities since the beginning of the electoral campaign. The Commission also has the ability to supervise the candidates, political forces, and Media and ensure their abidance by article 68 of the said law, and their refraining from broadcasting or publishing hatred based speeches and declarations involving slander, defamation, and libel and other expressions defined in article 68 of the said law. Analysis Methodology The Commission adopts, in its analysis of media materials, the qualitative and quantitative analysis technique. This methodology is used by international organizations concerned with elections supervision and observing Media performance during media campaigns. The methodology is based on the correlation of a set of variables pertaining to media material in order to reveal the violations with respect to hatred speech and to outline the media coverage rate for political forces and groups in each media and in all Medias together. This technique aims as well at specifying the live access for every political group and force to comprehensive media coverage. What is meant by live access is the period or space allocated for the political forces to speak live. The period is counted in seconds on the television and radio, whereas it is counted in square centimeter in the printed press. 2

3 Report Results In this report, the commission presents the results of an analysis of around thirty thousand recordings of electoral and political activities carried out by candidates, politicians and other parties and political blocs involved in the elections during the period 14 to 28 April 2009 with disparity in coverage between different media sectors. This report reveals the time allocated for live access given to the candidates from the audio visual media, and the space allocated by the press media for their live access. This report also includes the violations of article 68 mentioned above by Media companies who were granted the right to coverage. However, this report does not cover editorials, newspaper columns and articles published in the newspapers and signed by their authors. It only mentions the violations in news coverage and reports. The commission underlines that this report is not to be used as a tool to compare the various media but to stress on two issues: Revealing the status quo of coverage provided by the Media in question of electoral activities, and highlighting the media violations classified under hatred speech that is banned by the elections Law during the media campaign. Ensuring that the Commission has started to prepare election reports and is willing to work on producing reports periodically and for the period preceding the issuance of the present report as well as the final and comprehensive report at the end of the elections. Based on the above, the Commission does not consider this report as a tool to be used to compare the different Media. It rather considers it as a statement that explains to every media the means to abide by article 68 of the Parliamentary Elections Law, provide balance and impartiality, and refrain from the use of hatred speech. 3

4 The Media covered in this Report Visual Media Audio Media Printed Media NBN Radio Free Lebanon (Loubnan el Horr) Al-Akhbar LBCI Sawt El Ghad Sada Al-Balad OTV Al Risala Station (NBN) Future New TV Sawt Al Nour Al Liwa Future Al Safir Manar Radio Orient An-Nahar Future News TV Al Anwar MTV Voice of Lebanon (Sawt Loubnan) Addiyar Names of the Media were randomly sorted in this table 4

5 Section 1 The Media commitment to ensuring equal coverage of live access among candidates and alliances* *: This category comprises candidates and political members affiliated to all categories but in low percentages which, all together, do not exceed 20%. 5

6 1- Visual Media Graph 1: The total coverage of Live Access Period allocated for alliances 60.00% 50% 50.00% 40.00% Benchmark: seconds ثانية القاعدة: % 24% 20.00% 17% 10.00% 7% 2% 0.00% 14 معارضة Marchأذار 14 متعدد not وزراء Ministers غير مستقلون running for مرشحين elections 6

7 Graph 2: Television 1 Live Access Period allocated for Alliances 24% Ministers not running for elections 3% Independant 10% March14 33% 30% Benchmark: seconds Graph 3: Television 2 Live Access Period allocated for Alliances 4% 16% 6% 74% Benchmark: seconds 7

8 Graph 4: Television 3 Live Access Period allocated for Alliances 3% 8% 25% 64% Benchmark: Graph 5: Television 4 Live Access Period allocated for Alliances Ministers not running for elections 1% 14% 8% 22% 55% Benchmark:

9 Graph 6: Television 5 Live Access Period allocated for Alliances 1% 25% 25% Ministers not running for elections 6% 43% Benchmark: seconds Graph 7: Television 6 Live Access Period allocated for Alliances Ministers not for running elections 2% 14% 7% 38% 39% Benchmark: seconds 9

10 Graph 8: Television 7 Live Access Period allocated for Alliances Ministers not running for elections 1% 2% 15% 20% 62% Benchmark:

11 2 Audio Media Graph 1: Total coverage of Live Access Period allocated for alliances 45.00% 43% 40.00% 35.00% 30.00% 27% 25.00% 20.00% 20% Benchmark: seconds 15.00% 10.00% 8% 5.00% 0.00% 2% Ministers not for وزراء running غير متعدد معارضة المستقلون 14 أذار elections مرشحين 11

12 Graph 2: Radio 1 Live Access Period allocated for alliances 33% 47% 20% Benchmark: 6580 seconds Graph 3: Radio 2 Live Access Period allocated for alliances Ministers not running for elections 2% 25% 21% March 14 52% Benchmark: 2795 seconds 12

13 Graph 4: Radio 3- Live Access Period allocated for alliances Indepenedent 10% 10% Ministers not running for elections 2% 21% 57% Benchmark: 8822 seconds Graph 5: Radio 4 Live Access Period allocated for alliances Ministers not running for elections 1% 7% 25% 53% 14% Benchmark: seconds 13

14 Graph 6: Radio 5 Live Access Period allocated for alliances 4% 10% 86% Benchmark: 1262 Graph 7: Radio 6 Live Access Period allocated for alliances Ministers not running for elections 5% 2% 50% 40% Benchmark: 3024 seconds 3% 14

15 3 Printed Media Graph 1: Total coverage of Live Access Period allocated for alliances 45.00% 41% 40.00% 35.00% 33% 30.00% 25.00% 20.00% 15.00% 10.00% 14% 12% 5.00% 0.00% 2% 14 أذار متعدد المستقلون معارضة غير Ministers وزراء not running for مرشحين elections 15

16 Graph 2: Newspaper 1 Live Access Period allocated for alliances 34% 39% 13% 11% Ministers not running for elections 3% Benchmark: 5073 sq cm Graph 3: Newspaper 2 Live Access Period allocated for alliances 47% 31% 19% 3% Benchmark: 6261 sq cm 16

17 Graph 4: Newspaper 3 Live Access Period allocated for alliances 43% 20% 17% 18% Ministers not running for elections 2% Benchmark: 3853 sq cm Graph 5: Newspaper 4 Live Access Period allocated for alliances 6% 14% Ministers not running for election 2% 40% 39% Benchmark: 3115 sq cm 17

18 Section two: Showing the Media adherence to avoid: Any act of libel, slander and defamation towards any list or candidate. The diffusion of anything that might trigger religious, confessional, or ethnic feuds. The diffusion of anything that might trigger acts of violence or riots. The diffusion of anything that might lead to an accusation of disloyalty. The diffusion of anything that might be a means of intimidation. 18

19 60 Graph 1: Violations Curb /04/ /04/ /04/ /04/ /04/ /04/ /04/ /04/ /04/ /04/ /04/ /04/ /04/ /04/ /04/

20 Graph 2: Violations based on the type of Media Television 36% Printed Media 52% Radio 12% Graph 3: Violation Type Provocation 5% Intimidation 10% Triggering of religious feuds 5% 11% Libel, slander and defamation 51% Accusation of disloyalty 18% 20

21 Graph 4: Distribution of Violations based on the type of Media Triggering of religious feuds Provocation Intimidation Accusation of disloyalty Libel, slander and defamation Television Radio Press media 21

22 Graph 5: Violations in the Printed Media Newspaper 8 Newspaper 7 Newspaper 6 Newspaper 5 Newspaper 4 Libel, slander and defamation Accusation of disloyalty Intimidation Newspaper 3 Newspaper 2 Provocation Newspaper Triggering of religious feuds Radio 6 Radio 5 Radio 4 Radio 3 Graph 6: Violations in the Audio Media Libel, slander and defamation Accusation of disloyalty Intimidation Radio 2 Provocation Radio Triggering of religious feuds 22

23 Graph 7: Violations in the Visual Media Libel, slander and defamation Accusation of disloyalty Intimidation Provocation Triggering of religious feuds 23

24 Graph 8: Source of Violations Libel, slander and defamation Accusation of disloyalty Intimidation Provocation Triggering of religious feuds 24