The Media Monitoring and Development Project

Project Focus

Creating a platform for assessing the state of the media in Lesotho, identifying gaps and proposing solutions as well as promoting the development of the local media. The project will also build the capacity of the media as well as advocate for change in the media sector of the country.

Project Purpose

The purpose of the project is to find out the state of the local media as regards its capacity to report on specific areas, through periodic assessment surveys and researches which will be undertaken. It is also to gauge the growth trajectory of the media so that it performs its fiduciary responsibilities within society.

Project Summary

The Chronicle Media Group is embarking on a media monitoring and development project, which is intended to be a platform for assessing the capacity of the media in reporting on specific areas of journalism. The project will further assess the capacity of the media to carry out its fiduciary responsibilities of information provision, civic education, entertainment and persuasion to the satisfaction of their audiences.

The project is also intended to be a forum for assessing the degree to which the media adheres to the cardinal universal and local journalistic ethics and professional standards. It is also the intent of the project to come up with innovative strategies by the media to survive in the ever-changing media environment.

1.0 Background and Context

Lesotho’s media sector is said to be small and going through a sluggish growth and development. The print media comprising newspapers and magazines is the one media sector going through a rough patch regarding growth and development. The sector has nine (9) newspaper titles and two (2) magazines in circulation. There are only two (2) online newspapers.

The print media suffers more setbacks than any other media sector in the general media industry. It struggles to secure advertising from both public and private entities. The Government still remains the main advertiser. The risk associated with this is that there will be a skewed distribution of advertisements to various media outlets, based mainly not on readership and circulation, but other considerations.

Another critical factor affecting the growth of the print media sector is that of printing, especially for hardcopy newspapers and magazines. There is no formidable printing press in the country and most newspapers and magazines print outside the country, mainly in South Africa. Printing is expensive and it becomes a heavy cost for newspapers and magazines, hence, dwarfing the print media houses’ viability and sustainability.

The print media has been criticized for skewed prioritization of news that they publish for consumption by their readers. There seems to be bias towards political news, presented in a sensational manner. The negative effect this has on the reading populace is that it shapes public opinion in a manner slanted towards one segment of society. Furthermore, the print media’s roles of creating discourses for society, civic education and keeping society abreast of developments are performed from a skewed perspective of mainly politics to the exclusion of other news genres.

The broadcasting media on the other hand has seen exponential growth in the last two and half decades or so. There has been dominance of a government-owned radio station - Radio Lesotho for more than three decades since it hit the waves in 1964. It was only in November 1998 when Lesotho experienced its first private radio station. Thereafter, more frequencies have been issued out to radio stations, such that today, there are 26 radio stations on air. Six (6) of these are community radio stations while 17 are private and commercial. Three are state owned, of which two are non-commercial and one is commercial. The rest are owned by private broadcasting proprietors.

A critical factor dwarfing the growth of this sector is acute capacity constraints besetting broadcasting media houses. There are deficient skills sets in this sector as there has been no policy on entry into the journalism profession until the national media policy was promulgated under the national reforms in 2021.

The broadcasting sector is governed by the Broadcasting Code, which was crafted by the communications regulator; the Lesotho Communications Authority (LCA). LCA has in the last two years, tightened the screws on broadcasting media houses, especially radio by implementing the Broadcasting Code, particularly as regards ‘fit for purpose’ principles, which sets a minimum threshold for people working as broadcasters in the local broadcasting media houses.

This development was not received in a positive mode by those on the coalface. However, LCA went on its implementation of the Code, but made allowances by partnering with the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (LUCT) to offer training to practicing broadcasting practitioners.

The challenge facing radio stations is that they are not expanding their reach to cover the whole country or at least, a greater proportion of it. There is only one television station - the Lesotho Television (LTV) run by the Lesotho National Broadcasting Corporation (LNBS), which is government-owned and funded. Lesotho Television is unable to provide the whole nation with unbiased, impartial and inclusive news content that depicts the cultural and social fabric of the Lesotho society.