Details

The final instalment of the KAS, MISA, ACCORD Media and Election series for 2004 was held in Beira and Namaacha, just outside the capital Maputo this week. Mozambique will host its next election in December.

The Elections Reporting programme is part of a workshop series. In conjunction with MISA, ACCORD and the International Journalist Federation (IFJ), the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung is conducting a comprehensive series of journalistic skills development workshops on election reporting throughout the region.

During the course of 2004, five countries within the southern African region host national elections. These include Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, Mozambique and South Africa. This important act for any democracy demands distinctive preparation and extraordinary skills from the media covering the event. Our workshop series focuses on the uniqueness of elections reporting and also sensitizes journalists to issues such as ethics, gender equality and peculiar technical or circumstantial obstacles facing reporters of print and radio especially at that time.

The workshops started already in 2003 with editors of various media from the respective countries working together in a three day workshop. They compiled and developed a code of conduct for election reporting.

In a second step, journalists and reporters from those media houses attended a four day workshop to get familiar with the code, the general necessities of reporting elections and insight into the electoral rules, institutions, political parties and programs in the respective countries.

In a third step a series of national follow up workshops takes place a few weeks ahead of the elections in the different countries.