Media criticised for neglecting women’s voices ahead of elections, says ombudsman

Media ombudsman John Nakuta says the media is still struggling to amplify women’s voices in the run-up to the presidential and National Assembly elections.

Referring to political parties and media practitioners, including editors, Nakuta yesterday said there is a need for the Namibian media to deliberately increase its sourcing of women.

“In terms of women and men, if we were to compare that, we can see that men have the strongest voice, so to speak. The strongest presence within the political parties when it comes to media, is men,” Nakuta said.

He noted that political debate revolved around men, whose coverage was 66% versus 34% for women in June-July, while in July-August, coverage was 33% for women and 67% for men.

Nakuta was providing feedback on the second Elections Media Reporting project, which tracks election coverage by various Namibian media platforms.

The report covered the period from 21 July to 20 August.

Nakuta said men also have the strongest presence within the political parties’ social media discussions.

“So, basically it is still the same. It is men that are informing the debate,” Nakuta said.

He noted that while opposition parties received better coverage during July and August, the ruling party Swapo still received the lion’s share of reportage in both public and private media across all platforms, including broadcasting, print and digital platforms.

There has been a notable increase in election coverage overall. Opposition political parties received slightly more media coverage, from 59% to 66%,” Nakuta said.

Another key finding from the report is that the Popular Democratic Movement has taken over the Namibia Economic Freedom Fighters as the most covered political party in the country, second to Swapo.

“The lack of agenda setting by political parties is still observable though,” he said.