SECTOR 2 large part of our society not covered and there are issues which are not critically looked at.” Private media houses have to be careful in carrying out investigative stories because they have to consider who is at the head of the media house, who is in power and how the operations of a media house may be affected by these relationships - e.g. a broadcasting licence could be rescinded. The top stories in the state media focus on the President. Other issues are secondary. Investigative stories tend to concentrate on problems being faced by government, and other newsworthy issues “are relayed as information - policies and such issues, as dictated by government. Government media does not look at issues critically.” 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: 3.0 (2005 = 3.0; 2007 = 3.1; 2009 = 2.9; 2011 = 3.7) 2.10 Private broadcasters deliver a minimum of quality public interest programmes. Government does not offer funding or incentives to produce quality content broadcasts. As such, while there might be creative ideas, there are no resources to implement these initiatives. A number of stations rely on regional and international programmes. “Pending our [e-Botswana] licence, we had to minimise what we wanted to cover. The revenue is not sufficient, we don’t get government advertising and many companies are afraid to associate with us. So we have to rely on our mother company in South Africa.” There are many presenters whose topic ideas are hijacked or compromised by their listenership or viewership. During phone-in programmes, people calling in change the topic and the presenters find it difficult to get them back to the original issue. So what may have started off as an interesting conversation is AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER Botswana 2014 37