SECTOR 2 adequate. Panellists felt that private broadcasters could be doing more to cover public interest issues. For example, they tended to cover the easy and the obvious, narrow topics, such as e-tolling, but ignored broader issues such as that of the Traditional Courts Bill. “One thing that private broadcasters are doing to elevate the national discourse is to highlight alternative viewpoints, different to that of the SABC. Of course it can be argued whether these broadcasters are doing this for truly investigative purposes – such as reporting on where government has failed to deliver services – or if it is just being used for expedience, to criticise the government.” “There is no balance in the representation of news, and there are clear poles of reporting. With the state/public broadcaster reporting bad news is an exception; with private broadcasters it is the opposite. It’s political football.” 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: 2.8 (2010: n/a; 2008: n/a; 2006: n/a) 2.11 The country has a coherent ICT policy and/or the government implements promotional measures, which aim to meet the information needs of citizens, including marginalised communities. There is still no coherent ICT policy in place and the various pieces of legislation, which touch on areas of ICT, are apparently being reconsidered for inclusion into a single ICT policy. The process to develop such a policy has only recently been kicked off and is still probably years away from translation into new laws. As such government, through the Department of Communications, does not yet appear to be meeting the information needs of all its citizens, and any ICT initiatives appear to be taking place haphazardly in a policy vacuum. Some efforts have been made by the Department of Communications to connect schools to the Internet, according to a report in the Mail & Guardian (May 24 to 30, 2013). At the time of the report, 854 schools had been connected and Deputy 42 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER SOUTH AFRICA 2013