June 04, 2019

Stories behind the news: Hear what it takes to cover elections and find the news behind the stories

DEMOCRACY & GOVERNANCE RESEARCH AND ANALYSISMedia Release
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Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) is delighted to invite members of the media, industry, civil society and the public to the launch of their report “So much choice, but not enough voices? Analysing media coverage of 2019 Elections in South Africa”. The event will take place at Google South Africa on Tuesday 11 June 2019 at 18h00.

As the dust settles on the elections and before the antics of parliament begin, we want to share some of our findings from our final elections report and critically reflect with editors and journalists about what it takes to report the elections.

Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) has monitored every single democratic election in South Africa and this is our tenth elections monitoring period. This report is the final in a series of MMA reports where we interrogate three months of South Africa’s 2019 elections coverage and answer questions such as: Did our media report without fear or favour, or did longstanding biases creep into the mix? Whose voices did we hear and what did they say? What were the dominant narratives and did they shape election turnout? Join us as we answer these questions and help to spotlight the successes as well as the missed opportunities of newsrooms as they covered our latest elections.

On the evening, we will also use this opportunity to applaud those in the sector who were on the frontlines of the 2019 elections and who continue to push important boundaries in the types of stories they cover. Join us as we hear from the veritable Sipho Hlongwane (The Daily Vox), Phathiswa Magopani (SABC) and Genevieve Quintal (Business Day) and facilitated by Sam Mkokeli.  Get a behind the scenes take on what it is like to cover elections and what the challenges are, and hopefully some of the lighter moments they shared during the period.

For more information, feel free to contact Sarah Findlay (Elections Project Lead) on (011) 788 – 1278 or sarahf@mma.org.za