Bratislava (12 February 2008) – This is a follow up report on the previous long-term monitoring activities focusing on the political diversity in the media reporting, conducted by MEMO 98 in Slovakia and abroad. At the same time, this is already the second report connected to the EUMAP project in the framework of which MEMO 98 has focused on public service broadcasting (its function and role) as well as political pressure and impact on the media (the first monitoring report was published in 2007).

MEMO 98`s monitoring focused on media coverage of selected political entities (government, political parties represented in parliament and president) and their representatives in the nationwide TV stations – STV, TV Markiza, TA3 and TV Joj during the period of two weeks (24 November – 7 December) in the last quarter of 2008. The monitoring included quantitative and qualitative analysis of the coverage, assessing and producing findings regarding the time or space allocated to each candidate and also evaluating the tone of the coverage. Quantitative analysis measures the total amount of time and space devoted to election contestants on news and information programs. Qualitative analysis evaluates the tone in which the relevant political subjects have been portrayed – positive, neutral or negative.

• Government received the bulk of the coverage – more than half of the politically relevant information.
• 77% of information about the activities of Fico’s cabinet was neutral
• Of the monitored outlets, STV has the lowest share of negative information and the biggest share of neutral information about Government
• Prime Minister R. Fico received the bulk of the coverage in all monitored outlets – it was mainly neutral in tone.
• Most covered topics were problems surrounding the national lottery company Tipos and attempts to dismiss the finance minister Počiatek.

Media coverage of Government

The main finding of the follow-up report prepared in the framework of the EUMAP project is the fact that since the latest (2006) parliamentary elections, political interference with the Slovak media has increased. Leading politicians, from the Prime Minister down, have created an atmosphere of hostility, blaming the media for alleged bias and lack of professionalism, boycotting “oppositional” outlets, and adopting restrictive legislation against journalists.

The main goal of our monitoring was among other things to find out what impact has the above mentioned situation on the way how individual nationwide TV channels cover activities of the Government as well as other entities. Most covered topics were problems surrounding the national lottery company Tipos and attempts to dismiss the finance minister Počiatek.

As for the presentation of Fico’s cabinet, similarly as in the past, it received the bulk of the coverage. In comparison with the results covering the first monitoring period (15 February – 7 March), the total share of information about the Government dropped (in STV from 74, 1% to 44, 8 %; in Markiza from 72, 1% to 43, 8%; in TV Joj from 44, 8% to 39%; and in TA3 from 68, 1% to 46, 9%). It needs to be mentioned however that the first monitoring period was influenced by the explosion on 2 March of the ammunition warehouse in Military Maintenance Company Novaky – which had a direct impact on the increased coverage of the Government (thanks to the extensive coverage of the former Minister of Defense Kasicky and Prime Minister Fico). As much as half of the politically relevant information about the Government is not unusual – similar portion of time was devoted to the activities of the former Prime Minister Dzurinda`s cabinet.

As for the tone of the coverage, the qualitative analysis shows that the Government was predominantly portrayed in a neutral light, with the biggest share of neutral information on STV – 81%. At the same time, the public TV devoted the lowest share of negative information about the Government – only 15%. By contrast, the most popular TV Markiza was more critical of the Government – the total share of the negative information about Fico`s cabinet was 30%.

The results for the second monitoring period confirm the previous findings – the news reporting of STV is very careful in a way it depicts the activities of the State administration. This sort of presentation resembles the past when the most important aspect taken into consideration by the media was the priorities and interests of politicians and not the media`s actual, uncompromising and critical coverage.

Political parties and movements

It is evident that the in comparison with the first monitoring period, the total share of information about political parties and movements increased - the biggest increase in the amount of coverage (in all four monitored TV channels) was noted in the presentation of the opposition SDKU-DS party and the ruling Smer-SD party. As for the other parties, similar or smaller increase was noted in presentation of SNS (in STV and Markiza), ĽS-HZDS (in STV and Markiza), as well as KDH (in STV and TA3). The biggest amount of coverage in all monitored media outlets together went to SDKÚ-DS (11, 8%), followed by SMER-SD (9, 3%), SNS (6, 8%), KDH (5, 1%), ĽS-HZDS and SMK (4, 8%).

The qualitative analysis shows that the tone of the coverage about political parties and movements, similar to the presentation of Government, was overwhelmingly neutral. It is interesting to note that two parties were portrayed exclusively in a neutral manner - SMER-SD in STV and KDH in STV and Markize. As for the individual TV channels, the biggest share of neutral information about political entities (excluding the Government the presentation of which was analyzed above) was noted on TA3 (94%) and STV (91%) which coincides with the results for the first monitoring period. As for the other two monitored TV channels, the total share of neutral information was the following - TV Markíza (88%) and v TV Joj (84%). All monitored media devoted more negative than positive coverage to all monitored political entities – the biggest share negative information was noted in the news coverage of TV Joj (15%), followed by Markiza (11%), TA3 (5%) and STV (6%). Of all four TV channels, STV had the biggest share of positive information (3 %).

Coverage of Politicians

All four monitored TV stations devoted the biggest amount of their prime time news coverage to Prime Minister Fico – all together almost 30 minutes. Of the monitored outlets, TA3 gave Fico the biggest portion of time – almost 11 minutes – followed by STV (some 11 minutes). The second most presented politician was the Finance Minister J. Počiatek (more than 15 minutes) followed by the deputy chairman of SDKÚ-DS Ivan Mikloš (more than 10 minutes).

Unlike during the first monitoring period (when R. Fico was the most criticized politician), he was “only” the third most often criticized politician in the second monitoring period. The most often criticized politicians during this period were the Finance Minister J. Počiatek and the Minister of Construction and Regional Development M. Janušek – which was connected to attempts to dismiss them.

Presidential election

Notwithstanding the fact that none of the potential presidential candidates running in the upcoming 26 March presidential election has been officially registered, we were interested in the way how TV channels portray them. The incumbent President Ivan Gašparovič was devoted the bulk of the coverage in all four monitored TV channels (predominantly thanks to his coverage as president) – all together 8 minutes of exclusively neutral or positive coverage. His main rival, Iveta Radicova, received approximately four times less - only some two minutes of exclusively neutral coverage. From among other candidates, M. Melník was devoted 32 seconds and F. Mikloško 7 seconds of the coverage.

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The report is part of the project called “Monitoring of PBS in Slovakia and Czech Republic realized thanks to EUMAP project (EU Monitoring and Advocacy Program) conducted by Open Society Institute and the Media Program at Open Society Foundation.

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Attachments:
 Charts and Tables - All media
 Charts and Tables - STV
 Charts and Tables - TV Markíza
 Charts and Tables - TV Joj
 Charts and Tables - TA3