Rwandan state media has dismissed a report by the Media High Council (MHC) on how government-owned media outlets allocated and distributed airtime to political parties and the lone independent candidate during the just concluded parliamentary campaigns, writes Edwin Musoni in The New Times.
The report presented by the Executive Committee of the MHC named 'Media Monitoring Report on the Allocation of Airtime and Space in the Public Media to Political Parties and Independent Media' raised dust when representatives of the Rwanda Office of Information (ORINFOR) perused through and firmly branded the report as misleading and incomplete.
It (report) details the amount of airtime in minutes used by all political parties and independent candidate.
In the report, ORINFOR was grilled for not being professional in broadcasting talk shows and printing articles related to the campaigns.
The 16-page report, however, reads in part that the public media tried to abide by the MHC regulations 'although not to a satisfactory standard'.
The report indicated that the inconsistencies were mostly brought about by the lack of experience in time management.
Reacting to the report, the Director of Radio Rwanda, Willy Rukundo, dismissed it saying that it needs to be reviewed.
"This report does not show statistics in detail as they are supposed to be. It should be revised, otherwise it will mislead the public," he said.
Rukundo added that the report contains contradicting terminologies that were supposed to be looked at and corrected before its launch.
Some of the contradicting terminologies included allocation and distribution of airtime, an issue that was raised and pushed forward by researcher and sociologist, Servilien Sebasoni who also doubles as Rwanda Patriotic Front's Spokesperson.
The Editor-in-Chief of Imvaho Nshya Frank Ndamage, termed the report as 'imbalanced and full of contradictions.'
Click here to read the full report, posted on allafrica.com.
