Quality of Radio News in Zambia : Project report on quality assessment of radio broadcasts - Final report

This baseline study on the status quo of Zambian radio reporting quality revealed central training needs for Zambian radio reporters. The study used two methods: - Semi-structured interviews with staff of various radio stations and local media experts were held. They should render an insight into the enabling environment of the radio landscape in Zambia, the journalists’ working conditions and role models and thus allow the research team to detect training needs - The status quo of radio news journalistic quality was elaborated with a content analysis tool developed by IAM. The analysed sample consisted of daily news of four different radio stations, recorded in June 2006. The tool contains a quality criteria catalogue derived both from democracy theory and the interviews mentioned above. The main results of this baseline study are: 1. Zambian radio journalists have developed role models much in line with basic ‘Western’ journalism values, like objectivity, balanced reporting, enabling the listener to take own decisions, analysing complex issues, supporting public debate, giving a voice to all sides 2. However, prevailing working conditions – at least those of news journalists –mostly prevent the journalists from realising basic quality criteria they have set for themselves, like including more than one source for a news report etc. 3. The quality assessment shows a number of deficiencies in Zambian radio journalism, among them: a. The diversity of sources is rather limited and does not match with standard requirements. b.Government sources are highly considered, whereby other sources are rather neglected, especially by the state broadcaster ZNBC. c. Reporting on background of events and issues is highly neglected and needs to be strengthened. d. Some broadcasters hardly cover struggle as an element of public debate, concerning political issues. e. The diversity of viewpoints in news reports is low, thus preventing the public from deriving the full scope of opinions and viewpoints around an issue. f. Soundbites are still used on a low level; sources seldom get an opportunity to be heard directly. g. The perspectives of the general public are not much considered in news reports yet. It neither appears as a source. These results lead to two main training needs: 1. Reduce the deficiencies discovered above and thus increase the quality of reporting 2. Training has to be on individual as well as on station/editorial level in order to initiate real changeThis baseline study on the status quo of Zambian radio reporting quality revealed central training needs for Zambian radio reporters. The study used two methods: - Semi-structured interviews with staff of various radio stations and local media experts were held. They should render an insight into the enabling environment of the radio landscape in Zambia, the journalists’ working conditions and role models and thus allow the research team to detect training needs - The status quo of radio news journalistic quality was elaborated with a content analysis tool developed by IAM. The analysed sample consisted of daily news of four different radio stations, recorded in June 2006. The tool contains a quality criteria catalogue derived both from democracy theory and the interviews mentioned above. The main results of this baseline study are: 1. Zambian radio journalists have developed role models much in line with basic ‘Western’ journalism values, like objectivity, balanced reporting, enabling the listener to take own decisions, analysing complex issues, supporting public debate, giving a voice to all sides 2. However, prevailing working conditions – at least those of news journalists –mostly prevent the journalists from realising basic quality criteria they have set for themselves, like including more than one source for a news report etc. 3. The quality assessment shows a number of deficiencies in Zambian radio journalism, among them: a. The diversity of sources is rather limited and does not match with standard requirements. b.Government sources are highly considered, whereby other sources are rather neglected, especially by the state broadcaster ZNBC. c. Reporting on background of events and issues is highly neglected and needs to be strengthened. d. Some broadcasters hardly cover struggle as an element of public debate, concerning political issues. e. The diversity of viewpoints in news reports is low, thus preventing the public from deriving the full scope of opinions and viewpoints around an issue. f. Soundbites are still used on a low level; sources seldom get an opportunity to be heard directly. g. The perspectives of the general public are not much considered in news reports yet. It neither appears as a source. These results lead to two main training needs: 1. Reduce the deficiencies discovered above and thus increase the quality of reporting 2. Training has to be on individual as well as on station/editorial level in order to initiate real chang