Media Monitoring Africa has monitored every democratic election in South Africa. This year we are doing the same, providing daily reports and weekly reports on media coverage of election news[1], as well as MMA’s Election Media Ratings.

Top stories for Friday the 27 February are:

1. Ipsos/Markinor survey results on ANC politicians.  Various papers framed this differently, emphasizing different aspects of the poll.  Most picked up that Jacob Zuma was not rated very highly by South Africans.
• Business Day, p. 3;
• Daily Sun, p. 8;
• E-tv, item 3;
• The Citizen, p. 4;
• The Times, p. 7;
• SABC, item 3; and;
• Sowetan, p. 15.
• Results from the survey appeared in the Beeld on Thursday.

Etv and SABC included a response from Zuma to the poll, and etv also included comment from a political analyst to the story.  IOL included a response from Malema to the poll.

2. The ANC’s list of candidates for office.
• Beeld, p. 2;
• Business Day, p. 3;
• The Citizen, p. 4;
• The Citizen, p. 12 (editorial);
• The Star, p. 6; and
• The Star, p. 18 (editorial).

There have also been some follow up stories and comments about Malema and his insulting of political opponents by Sowetan.  Such coverage of Malema is different to the norm, which has tended to be event-based.

The first political campaign television advert to be broadcast was also covered by various papers.  However, most of the coverage was about the ANC’s adverts, with some noting that the DA would be broadcasting their own from Monday.  It was strange that the decision by ICASA to allow such adverts was not interrogated.  The implications also need to be interrogated, considering the decision may work to disadvantage parties that lack the resources to produce and air such adverts.
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For more information please contact Sandra Roberts on 084 9000 344 or 011 788 1278 or William Bird on 082 887 1370.
The Daily Reports are made possible by Open Society Foundation.

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1. The following media are reviewed in the compilation of this report: Beeld, Business Day, Daily Sun, e-tv primetime news, SABC 3 primetime news, Sowetan, The Citizen, The Star, and The Times.
2. Please note our full-scale elections monitoring is still in process.  Let us know if you would like your media to be included in the analysis.