By Bill K. Jarkloh
Email: bill_ksolborjarkloh@yahoo.com
Call: +231–(0)6-468-244
Media discrimination is a tenet of bad governance which in my view should be distanced from the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Government. This statement is against the backdrop of my observation regarding public affairs practices by Presidential Press Secretary Cyrus Badio which is now visiting the National Elections Commission (NEC) ahead of the 2011 elections. It is an indisputable fact that Presidential Press Secretary Cyrus is fond of selecting from certain group of media institutions to travel with the President, leaving out others such is the case pf the NEW VISION Newspaper.
Similar attitude of media discrimination is now making its way into the NEC. To begin with the Wednesday meeting of the National Elections Commission with some media institution is a bad precedence and a recipe for a divide and rule engagement of the NEC with the media during the ensuing national elections. The NEC, as the institution, scheduled a meeting with the media through radio announcement in a bid to engage the fourth estate on a means of collaboration in ensuring a successful election. In that announcement the NEC said it “hopes that invited media institutions are present” at the meeting.
True to the content of the announcement, the NEC sent out invitations to the exclusion of some media institutions. The reason for discriminating amongst the media outlets is not known; however, a staff of NEC, while I was returning to office to finish production, restated to me on Broad Street that the Commission had just met with “the press people.” This media operative of the NEC further informed me that several other invited media institutions were present, but he could not answer why was the meeting seeking media collaboration was limited to some media institutions and excluding others. The restriction of the meeting by the NEC media office to some institutions signal a wrong intention by the NEC to deal with only those institutions that it prefers and chooses to collaborate with.
The NEC pretended to forget that such is a recipe for future conflict, whereby the discriminated media institutions could operate outside the NEC-media collaboration plan and agenda. Does NEC forget that every print media institution has a readership and all electronic communication channels or frequencies have their respective listening audiences here and abroad? This means selecting and dividing the media would set up a media approach that could operate against the very commission.
The NEC should be told that there are groups of people with diverse and contentious interests that it would be dealing with 2011, and any of the two groups could use the left discriminated media outlets to propagate a situation that may push the Commission against its traditional norms of fairness and transparency during the conduct of elections.
As a matter of fact, the perception of free, fair and transparent conducts of the 12011 elections is highly becoming questionable in as much as the NEC would discriminate amongst the media institutions operating within its very proximity. In a practical reality, a national and democratic institution such as the NEC, which has begun to be discriminative in all its dealings with the media, has something to hide under its sleeves. This is to say that a transparent, fair and free minded NEC will not choose certain media institutions to plan election approaches and strategies collaboratively in a divide and rule fashion. To divide the media means that the institution itself through its media component has failed to uphold the tenets of transparency and is therefore is seen to be shrouded in unfairness and partiality for reason that its very media strategy and collaboration have come to be divisive d discriminatory in nature.
May I ask: What would be the NEC’s reaction if one of the discriminated papers or radio/TV stations (if any in the latter categories) is rigorous used to propagate the Commission’s partiality, unfairness and lack of transparency in the democratic process? Didn’t it think that every institution is playing a recording keeping and watchdog role? Is it that the NEC media operatives and commissioners are underestimating the capacities of journalists of the discriminated media themselves? Does the NEC forget that it is a democratic institution that should befriend and partner with all and every media and other democratic institutions to achieve its function successfully?
For me, the discrimination of other media institutions is a flaw in the NEC’s strategy to partner with the media, since every media institution including the ones that may be established today must have a stake in the electoral affairs of the country. Besides, all of the newspapers, radio and television stations have their respective unique potentials as well as readerships and audiences that have stakes in shaping the destiny of the country as far as successful outcome of the elections are concerned.
This is why I am not surprise at the NEC as a public institution. Some of these public institutions have the tendency of discriminating amongst the media. For instance, the office of the President is also doing that. Mr. Cyrus Badio who is the President’s Press Secretary has always led the President to selecting one group of institutions to go on trips, while the discriminated ones are those that give wider publicity and coverage to the Executive Mansion and other public institutions.
But they are deliberately discriminated and denied access to the Presidency when it comes to trips and sometimes negotiated exclusive interviews. This kind of behavior by public affairs and public relations offices of government is sometimes translated to the way they dish out advertisement and invite institutions to programs or press conferences.
I therefore call on all public institutions to be even-handed in dealing with the press so that at the end, they would not be trading blames of unprofessionalism against the discriminated media institutions and their operators. The fact is that no one should see one or few newspapers or radio stations to be more than the others. Every journalist was schooled and every newspaper or station has audience. You may not know the amount of influence the discriminated papers wheel in the public until when one stumbles foot against the stone, when media – discriminated or favored - begin to carry the filths or shortcomings to their respective or individual publics.
It is against this backdrop that public institutions interested in good governance are cautioned against media discrimination, which in my view, is pervasive in this government’s public relations/public affairs bureaucracy, especially using the cases of the NEC ands the Executive Mansion as discussed above. I also draw President Sirleaf’s attention to this kind of discrimination by her Press Secretary, so that every media institution, especially the NEW VISION would benefit from the exposures associated with presidential trips.
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