The report prepared by Movimento Cívico Mudei, an Angolan non-governmental organization, covers the period between November 2023 and January 2024 and focuses on materials published by Jornal de Angola (JA), Televisão Pública de Angola (TPA), Rádio Nacional de Angola (RNA), state bodies, and TV Zimbo, a private channel that passed to the State sphere.
According to the report, consulted this Friday by Lusa, the Government's agenda occupied 48.6 percent of the news space of these bodies, namely 63.8 percent of the JA covers, 48.6 percent on the TPA newscast, 35.5 percent on TV Zimbo news and 46.8 percent on RNA's 1pm news.
News about society, sport and international news occupy the following positions.
In addition to the central space given to the executive, "there is an absence of critical or contradictory sense", says Mudei, highlighting that "no disagreements or errors in government action are reported".
In relation to political parties, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) occupied, overall, 79.5 percent of the antenna space monitored in the aforementioned bodies – TPA (88 percent), TV Zimbo (70 percent), JA (93 percent) and RNA (67 percent).
The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), overall, absorbed only 13 percent of the news space, namely, 7 percent on TPA, 24 percent on TV Zimbo, 7 percent on Jornal de Angola and 14 percent in RNA.
In several categories (culture, business, civil society and others) "there is a tendency to adopt a perspective that highlights the presence and role of the executive or organizations and individuals close to him", observes Mudei.
The NGO also considers the limited space and/or omission given to trade union organizations, protest movements or civil society organizations to be "notable" in these bodies during the months of November and December 2023 and January 2024.
This monitoring work, which consisted of observing (visualizing, listening and measuring) and classifying the main news programs from TPA, TV Zimbo and RNA and the covers of JA, found that Jornal de Angola and TPA "stood out in the imbalance treatment of different political actors".
The analysis concludes that the editorial staff of the aforementioned bodies and their respective supervision reveal a hegemonic vision in the exercise of power and the right to public discourse and highlights that the basic principles of journalism, such as the right to contradictory proceedings, are "systematically ignored".
The editorial line of the monitored bodies - "especially Jornal de Angola and TPA - seems more like that of a Government public relations body than a press body serving the public, with the aim of informing them", concludes Mudei.
The report included the analysis of a total of 4807 news items, namely 590 from Jornal de Angola, 1011 from RNA, 1689 from TPA and 1517 from TV Zimbo.
Mudei, which promises to regularly publish quarterly monitoring reports, also considered in this document, dated May 30, that social communication is one of the essential pillars of an open and plural political process.
