State-Owned Print Media News Coverage Skewed Toward Ruling NPP

A study conducted by the Centre for Media Analysis and Research (CMAR) has established that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) got the most coverage by the two state owned print media - Daily Graphic and Ghanaian Times - from January 2007 to March 2008.

The research findings revealed that under the period the NPP was given the highest news story coverage of 48% followed by the NDC with 25.4 %.

On News Space allotment, Daily Graphic gave the highest news space coverage of 69% to the NPP and gave NDC 15 %, CPP 10% respectively.

Similarly, The Ghanaian Times also gave the highest News Space to the NPP with 50%, NDC 25%, CPP 16%. The PNC and the GCPP had only 6% and 1% respectively.

Daily Graphic and The Ghanaian Times accorded NPP the highest News Space of 63% in 15 Months News Monitoring. The NDC, CPP, PNC, DFP, and GCPP, recorded only, 17.7%, 11.7%, 4.6%, 1.7%, 0.76% respectively

One of the questions the research sought answers to was whether the State-owned print media (Daily Graphic & The Ghanaian Times) were generally giving the New Patriotic Party (NPP) more coverage in terms of News story and News space distributions than other political parties?

Also, whether the state-owned media (Daily Graphic & The Ghanaian Times) was "unfair" towards the oppositional parties in terms of political parties' news-story distribution.

Moreover, whether the state-owned media (Daily Graphic & The Ghanaian Times) were "unfair" towards opposition parties in terms of political parties' news-space distribution. A similar study conducted by the Media Foundation for West Africa found that then ruling NDC government attracted more coverage than opposition NPP

The research was motivated by provisions of the 1992 Republican Constitution of Ghana.

Article 55 (11) of the constitution states - The State shall provide fair opportunity to all political parties to present their programmes to the public by ensuring equal access to the state-owned media.

Article 55 (12) - All presidential candidates shall be given the same amount of time and space on the state-owned media to present their programmes to the people.

Article 163 - All state-owned media shall accord fair opportunities and facilities for the presentation of divergent views and dissenting opinions.

Whilst submitting that the findings imply that the two state-owned print media houses did not adhere to the above constitution provisions, CMAR admits that it may not necessarily be their fault.

"In spite of the "unfair" coverage of the opposition parties by the state-owned print media, it is worth noting that, the trend of the reportage could be as a result of inactive political parties, ineffective engagement of the state-owned print media by the opposition parties, and the lack of effective media strategy by opposition party's communication departments.

"The state owned media cannot be blamed in totality; rather Political Party activities should be critically correlated with State - Owned Media engagements.

'Furthermore, Political Parties should note that The State - Owned media are not supposed to generate Political Party Activity News but to cover Political Party Activities and Programmes."

In line with the findings, the centre among others made the following recommendations.

"The State - Owned Media should endeavour to offer equal coverage to all the registered Political Parties and Presidential Hopefuls, especially in this Electioneering Year to avoid Political conflicts in ensuring successful Election.

"The NPP should be commended for actively engaging the state-owned print media during political off season and political season.

"Political parties should effectively engage the state-owned media to enable them gain equally higher media presence otherwise the constitutional provision would remain a myth.

"The Daily Graphic and the Ghanaian Times should institute an internal monitoring mechanism to ensure that all political parties are accorded the equal and fair coverage.

"The Daily Graphic and the Ghanaian Times should offer equal opportunity in terms of news story distribution to all political parties."