According to the preliminary report, out of the fourteen media whose content was analysed, 23% of the stories were considered biased as compared to recent trends monitored in South Africa in which 15% of the monitored coverage was biased.
The study further shows that “event-based coverage” has led to some of the key issues such as health and education being sidelined, and despite making up over 50% of the population, children’s issues were nearly invisible.
Worse still, the issue of gender mainstreaming continues to arise and was, as such, a salient factor during the election. Here, the Media Monitoring Africa Zambia election report found that only 12% of the sources accessed were female.