SECTOR 4 Scores: Individual scores: 1 Country does not meet indicator 2 Country meets only a few aspects of indicator 3 Country meets some aspects of indicator 4 Country meets most aspects of indicator 5 Country meets all aspects of the indicator Average score: 1.4 (2010 = 3.2; 2008 = 2.1; 2006 = 1.2) 4.3 The media cover the full spectrum of events, issues and cultures, including business/economics, cultural, local and investigative stories. Journalists may get a good story but will pass it on if it requires work. They prefer a story that is ready and there are many information officers who are prepared to write an article and hand it over to a journalist who will pass it on as his or her own story. Journalists rely heavily on press releases so that they can cut and paste. Then there are journalists who prefer to go to places where it is easy to get a story because they want to meet their deadline. So stories tend to be urban based and there are very few stories about events in rural areas or issues that impact on rural communities. “The only one time you see a story coming up is because ...everybody is talking about it and there is a scandal attached to it... l think we really have a problem with investigative journalism. And from what l have noticed, most papers don’t have business pages.” Stories may focus on the opening of a new bank but there is nothing on financial indicators or markets trends. Public Eye is the exception as it carries an extensive amount of business news. There is very little analysis undertaken on issues and this can be attributed to lack of knowledge. The Bank of Lesotho tried to assist by tackling the subject of economics reporting but their mistake was in using MISA as the entry point into media houses. This move was resisted by the newsrooms. Initiatives have been offered to newsrooms by professionals who have agreed to come into newsrooms and offer their knowledge on specialised topics but these have never been taken up. All these initiatives seem to be fraught with politics and editors are not keen on taking them up. 54 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER LESOTHO 2012