Internews Program: Media Commission Dari | Pashto

Panel 1. Media Commission

Guest for Panel 1. is    

1. What is Media Commission?  

Media Commission is a body with a regulatory role. It will be consistent with the Afghan Constitution and relevant legislation promoting free and fair election, strengthening confidence and trust of the Afghan people in the electoral process, and contributing to capacity building and empowerment of Afghan citizens.

2. What is the legal basis for the establishment of a Media Commission?

The primary legal basis for the Media Commission lies in Article 56 of the Electoral Law stating: “The Independent Electoral Commission shall set up, at least 60 days prior to the election date, a Media Commission to monitor the reporting and coverage of the electoral campaign and advise it on any breaches of fair reporting and coverage of the election campaign and of any breaches of the provisions of the code of conduct (procedures) for the elections relating to the media that may occur during the election campaign. Following the recommendation of the Media Commission, the Independent Electoral Commission (further denominated Joint Electoral Management Body), may issue a public reprimand of the media involved or refer the matter to the Director of Public Prosecution.”

3.   When was the Media Commission established and how long will it function?

The Media Commission was officially established by a decision of the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) on 8 August 2004. The Media Commission will function from the date of its establishment to 15 days after the polling day. Should there be a run-off election, the mandate of the Media Commission would be extended to cover the potential second electoral campaign. In that case, it would remain in place for 15 days after the second poll.

4. What is the composition of the Media Commission?

The MC consists of six Media Commissioners, the Secretariat, Regulatory Compliance Unit and Media Monitoring Unit.

5.   Who appointed the Media Commissioners, and who are Media Commissioners?

Six Commissioners were appointed by the JEMB. Four Afghan Commissioners were chosen based on their credibility and the knowledge of the Afghan media. These are Mr. Engineer Qaeym Quudbuddin who is the presiding officer and a member of the JEMB, Mrs. Latifa Sayeidi Pope, Mr. Gul Ahmad Nazari and   Mr. Mohammad Ismahil “Akbar”. Two international Commissioners were chosen based on their expertise in media monitoring and the regulatory compliance. The International Commissioners are Mrs. Michelle Lee, Legal Adviser who specialized in Media Law, and Mr. Xabier Meilan, a Deputy Presiding Officer and a Head of the Media Monitoring Unit

Panel 2. The Work Performed by the Media Commission

Guests for Panel 2. are

1. What will Media Commission be doing?

The Media Commission will monitor media coverage and oversee fair reporting during the electoral campaign.  Fair reporting will be assessed in accordance with the Code of Conduct, which will be drafted by the Media Commission for the approval by the JEMB. In other words, the Media Commission's main functions will be monitoring and advising on breaches of the Code of Conduct.

2. What is the relationship between the Media Commission and the JEMB?

The Media Commission is a tool of the JEMB. The Media Commission will issue recommendations to JEMB regarding the Code of Conduct and the media complaints. JEMB can approve or ask for further changes to the same.  The communications between the JEMB and the Media Commission will be done through Commissioner Engineer Mr. Qaeym Quudbuddin, President of the Media Commission and a member of the JEMB.

3. How will the Media Commission conduct its work?

According to its own rules, the Media Commission will be meeting at least twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays. However, due to time constraints and the importance of the work issues that the Media Commission is dealing with, the Commission had to meet more frequently since its first meeting on 16 August 2004.

4. What is the composition of a Media Monitoring Unit and what will it do? Please elaborate.

Media Monitoring Unit is part of the Media Commission consisting of 33 members, including monitors, translators, and assistants, who will be working in the media monitoring effort. During the electoral campaign, it will monitor a sample of Radio, TV and print outlets, altogether 39 outlets including 19 radios, 10 TVs and 10 print publications). The monitoring will be conducted from Kabul and 7 other cities: Gardez, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar, Kunduz, Jalalabad and Bamyan. Based on monitoring efforts, the Media Monitoring Unit will produce two weekly reports as follows: a) a Media Digest, which will be a qualitative report summarizing the most important electoral related news found by the MMU on the analyzed media, and b) a Media Monitoring Report, which will be a quantitative report on the amount and tone of the exposure of the candidates (negative, neutral or positive) on the mass media. These reports will clearly be giving trends on media coverage, basing their findings on the analysis of a very comprehensive sample of media publishing and broadcasting in any of the Afghan national languages. The monitoring will also include international, national and regional media outlets. In so doing, the Monitoring Unit will comply with international standards to monitor elections. Comparatively speaking, the sample of 39 media is much larger than usual when monitoring the media in developing democracies.   

5. How was the media selected for monitoring?

Given that the main purpose of the media monitoring effort is to determine whether the Afghan voters receive from the media fair, balanced and impartial information, the most important media outlets in the country have been sampled for analysis in order to meet that purpose. The media sample was designed to cover both state-owned and private, print and electronic, international, national, local and regional media. Regarding print media, two additional criteria used are as follows: a)   daily outlets, and b) other non-daily periodicals with a high circulation and no party affiliation.

6. Why will the not party-affiliated publications be monitored?

Even though some sources could consider that party-affiliated publications are among those with the largest circulation and/or readership, those publications have generally a small print run and they promote the vote for their candidates. Therefore, they are not supposed to provide fair and impartial information about the available electoral choices. They always advocate for their candidates and their inclusion among the analysed media would bias the sample.

7. Which Media will be monitored and what are the criteria for selection?

As explained, the Media samples will be monitored including state-owned and private Media, print and electronic, local and regional Media. Regarding the print Media that will be monitored, three additional criteria used are as follows: a) daily outlets, b) periodical with a circulation of over 5000 copies, and c) nonpartisan publications.

8. Why is it important for the audience to know about the Media monitoring efforts? And finally, what is the significance of the Media Commission for the elections?

Apart from getting informed about the Media Monitoring efforts in general, it is important for the audience to know that anyone can lodge a complaint to the Media Commissioners whether or not the Monitoring Unit will monitor the specific publication. Again, Media Monitoring Unit is part of the Media Commission and its establishment is clear mandated in the Electoral Law. The Media Commission's purpose, role and the operating procedures are important for the overall electoral process in terms of having the elections seen as free and fair, further promoting confidence and trust of the Afghan people in the electoral process.