Media monitoring shows disturbing excesses by privately-owned newspapers

Reporters Without Borders is extremely concerned about the outrageous language and hyperbole used by the privately-owned dailies Le Nouveau Réveil, Notre Voie and Le Patriote yesterday, four days before the first round of the presidential election. Talk of “massacres and carnage” and “unpunished genocide” by incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo on Le Patriote’s front page, accusations against candidate Alassane Ouattara's party of having “robbed the peasants” on page 7 of Notre Voie and references to “attack plans” by pro-Gbagbo former soldiers preparing “disturbances for the night of 29 October” on page 11 of Le Nouveau Réveil were all excessive and contrary to the standards of professional journalism. It is acceptable for a privately-owned newspaper to support a candidate and criticize his rivals but the freedom to express opinions does not exempt journalists from the duty to respect professional ethics and codes of conduct. This means that they may under no circumstances use hateful or incendiary language or publish biased or defamatory reports, and stories liable to fuel tensions within the population must with always be handled in a careful and even-handed manner Reporters Without Borders therefore calls on Le Nouveau Réveil, Notre Voie and Le Patriote to immediately change their approach to the election campaign by providing their readers with balanced and responsible reporting and thereby contributing in a positive manner to the plurality of the democratic debate in Côte d’Ivoire. Reporters Without Borders also takes note of candidate Henri Konan Bédié’s decision not to take part in “Facing the voters,” a special programme that gives each candidate 90 minutes of prime time on the public radio and TV stations to present their election platform. In a statement explaining his decision, Bédié said: “After refusing to organise debates between the candidates, the National Broadcasting Council (CNCA) is confiscating the public broadcasting space and is manoeuvring so as to favour the space given to (President Gbagbo) and his companions.” Reporters Without Borders regrets that the CNCA did not use a lottery to determine the order in which the candidates appear in “Facing the voters.” It also regrets that the CNCA has taken no measure to force the public radio and TV stations – La Première, the public broadcaster RTI’s main TV channel, and Radio Côte d’Ivoire (RCI) – to respect the rules it issued, under which the 14 candidates should receive strictly equal air-time during the two-week official campaign period. The monitoring that a Reporters Without Borders team has been conducting since 15 October shows that RCI has been systematically favouring President Gbagbo and that La Première, after several days of improvement, began on 25 October to give him much more air-time than the other candidates by means of excessive coverage of his activities as president. Mission Reporters Without Borders began monitoring the Ivorian media on 15 October and will continue to do so until the end of the presidential election. Its quantitative and qualitative monitoring is being carried out in Abidjan by a team of observers, who are evaluating the air-time that the public radio and TV stations allocate to the political parties and movements participating in the election. They are also evaluating the space allocated by the public-service daily Fraternité Matin and a number of privately-owned dailies. The aim is to ensure respect for the principle of fairness in the state media and balance in the privately-owned media. Methodology Reporters Without Borders is observing and measuring the air-time that the candidates get in all the French-language programmes relating to the elections on the public TV station La Première and the public radio station Radio Côte d’Ivoire (RCI). As regards the print media, it is measuring and comparing the column space that each candidate and their supporters and allies get in the public-service daily Fraternité Matin and in a number of privately-owned dailies: Le Nouveau Réveil, Le Patriote and Notre Voie during the first-round campaign, and L'Intelligent d'Abidjan, Soir Info and L'Inter during the second-round campaign. It is also carrying out a qualitative evaluation of the tone used by the journalists and media in their references to the candidates.