By James Tamba Lebbie
When Politico and some independent civil society institutions sounded the alarm bell earlier that the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) is a public broadcaster only on paper, we were branded “detractors” by the Corporation’s management. Several months later, the European Union’s “Preliminary Statement” of its election observation mission in the country issued by on 19 November 201 confirmed our earlier position held on the country’s so-called public broadcaster that it is both a sham and a façade. Below is an excerpt from the statement:
“The public broadcaster, Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) gave access to all political parties on radio and to nine political parties on television…Nevertheless, in key areas like news bulletins and election related programmes, SLBC showed significant quantitative unbalance in favour of the ruling party. EU EOM’s media monitoring findings show that, from 17 October to 15 November, SLBC TV allocated double the amount of airtime (40 per cent) to APC than to SLPP (18 per cent). On top of that, additional 21 per cent of airtime was devoted to APC led government activities, meaning that 61 per cent of all coverage was devoted to the governing party. On SLBC radio the unbalance was slightly lower, with APC receiving 40.5 per cent of total airtime on news and programmes and SLPP being afforded 23 per cent of the coverage. None of the remaining seven parties received more than 8.5 per cent of coverage either on SLBC Radio or on SLBC TV….”
As noted by other observer groups, the SLBC gave sustained airtime to the ruling All People's Congress Youth League throughout the elections period. Against this backdrop, it is important to understand the policy and/or legal framework that underpins the establishment of the SLBC. According to Section 10(2)c of the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation Act 2009, the Corporation “shall allow and accept limited sponsorship for programmes and advertisement, except that no sponsorship shall be allowed for news programmes or accepted from political, ethnic or religious groups or institutions”. Also, Section 11(2)c of the SLBC Act states that the discharge of the functions of the Corporation shall be guided by “promotion of fair competition based on internationally accepted principles for a public broadcaster, which include independent management, public service ethos and representation of all viewpoints and sectors of society in a non-partisan and objective manner”. These are the sections of the SLBC Act that were most violated and abused by the very corporation itself.
Meanwhile, a lame press release issued on the 20 November and signed by the corporation’s Director-General described the EU preliminary report as “misleading and contradictory capable to undermine the valuable strides the corporation has made to represent the opinion of all categories of Sierra Leone”. Basically, the main argument made in the press release is that the coverage given to government activities was misconstrued by the EU observer team as media coverage for activities of the ruling party.
But several factors - both at the micro and macro levels - account for the SLBC’s muddled performance. At the micro level, the public broadcaster is governed by a Board of Trustees that is utterly incapable of insulating the corporation from outside interference. To further exacerbate the situation, the management of the SLBC is corrupt and grossly incompetent as indicated by the KPMG audit report this year. Further, the SLBC was hurriedly created out of an old, failed, and discredited structure by using the same old senior managers, most of whom are entangled in the old template of pro-establishment journalism.
At the macro level, it is important to understand that the SLBC does not operate in a vacuum. Therefore, it is also pertinent to comprehend the socio-political context within which it exists. Media scholars have theorized and with some justification that the media is a reflection of the society in which it operates. To that end, it is relevant to understand that the APC party under which the SLBC was established and still now operates was created and patterned on the dogmas of the socialist/communist countries during the east-west ideological dichotomy in the 1960s. And in spite of the significant efforts made over the years to extricate itself from that communist ideology, the APC is still thriving in the shadows of the communist hangover. To understand my point and to decipher why the SLBC under the APC is behaving the manner in which it is, one has to grasp the communist-socialist media communication theory.
According to Fred Siebert et al, the definition of the Soviet concept of mass communication is that the media are used as an instrument of the state and political party that are closely integrated with other instruments of state power and political party influence. The media are used as instruments of unity within the state and the party and are used almost exclusively as instruments of propaganda and agitation.
In terms of the instrumental use of mass communication, there is no place in the Soviet concept for the idea of the press as a clear and independent mirror of events and that Soviet mass communications do not have integrity on their own. Their integrity is that of the state and the party. Therefore, the media are kept as instruments and they follow humbly and diligently the twists and turns of the party line and state directives.
In addition, the mass media in the Soviet system is integrated into the functioning of the state and party in a way that is quite foreign to western experience. Propaganda, agitation, organization, and coercion represent an unbroken continuum in the Soviet thinking. Therefore, the media are designed specifically not only to inform the people, but also to serve the propagandists who are organizing the masses and the party leaders.
In terms of control of Soviet press, the chief responsibility belongs to the party and not the government. In fact, the government does not even have a department of public information. This function is carried out by the Department of Propaganda and Agitation of the party. The reason why this responsibility is given to the party rather than the government is completely in line with the theory. The government is supposed to wither away and therefore, the press is supposed to belong to the people who are represented by the party. Moreover, Soviet leaders have always placed very high importance on the party as a custodian of values and determiner of goals and on the press as “a transmission belt between the masses and the party”.
Against this background, one should be inclined to ask how truth is derived from the expression of the official line. In the early years of Soviet power, it was assumed that truth was arrived at through collective deliberation of the party. Therefore, each party member was supposed to have full freedom of discussion until a party congress reach a decision. However, by the 1920s, control of that responsibility passed from the broad discussion and Party Congresses to the small group of top party leaders so that Party Congresses were merely called chiefly to approve decisions already made. One effect of this development is therefore, to put basic responsibility for all mass communications in the hands of small group of top party leaders. This means all mass media in the Soviet Union become speaking trumpets for these leaders, and editors and directors listen anxiously for the latest “truth” from these party leaders.
From this perspective, it is easy to understand that while the situation of the media generally in Sierra Leone is certainly not the same as they exist in Soviet societies largely because of the democratic gains in the country in the last fifteen years, control of the media by the APC is a proclivity it would cherish. And the institutional structure and funding arrangements of the SLBC is such that it has easily become subservient to the government and party in power with the line between the two increasingly becoming blurred.
(c) Politico 27/11/12
