Projects

Ethiopia Media Support Project (Training for Journalists and Media Monitoring)

In March 2010 ERIS launched a support project for Ethiopian media consisting of the capacity building project for journalists and a media monitoring programme, which was implemented in close cooperation with the School of Journalism of Addis Ababa University (SJ AAU).

The trainings reached more than 100 Ethiopian journalists and were held in Addis Ababa as well as the regional centres of Awassa, Nazareth, Bahir dar and Makele. They aimed at improving the quality of media coverage during the May 2010 parliamentary election including editorial standards, accuracy of reporting and balance in coverage of the campaign and electoral process itself.

The media monitoring programme provided statistical analysis of the media’s coverage of the candidates and political parties during the campaign period. It assessed the access granted to political parties and independent candidates in the public and private mass media and whether the coverage of candidates was fair and balanced; as well as the tone of media coverage towards the candidates.

For this purpose, a team of media monitors was trained and supervised by an international media analyst in quantitative analysis techniques. During a two month period the media was monitored both during the campaign and post election periods. This data was entered into a database to allow statistical reports to be published analysing the progressive coverage of the election campaign by the media.

For more information on this project, contact ERIS Programme Manager Iwona Grzyb at iwona@eris.org.uk

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