SECTOR 2

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:

2.3 (2005: n/a; 2007: n/a;
2009: n/a; 2011: 2.5)

2.9 Media cover the full spectrum of economic, cultural, political, social, national and local perspectives and
conduct investigative stories.
The media cover a broad spectrum of different events and topics, but they are not
covering a broad spectrum of perspectives.
“We are missing the boat on a lot of angles,” commented one panellist.

...there is “no
effort to go to
the man on the
street, to link
the issues to the
people...”

There are days on which all papers carry more or less the
same headlines, with the same angles, on stories, and
they usually end up, as a panellist stated, “missing the
perspectives from below”.
All papers will, for instance, cover the discussion about
minimum salaries for domestic workers, but no paper will
speak to a domestic worker and investigate how they live
on their salary.

Journalists tend to write from press statements instead of
investigating alternative angles on an issue. “We tend to
run to the same speakers”, noted the panel.
Lastly, there seems to be a (mis)understanding that investigative journalism is only
about (high level) corruption. It was agreed that there is “no effort to go to the
man on the street, to link the issues to the people”.

38

AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER NAMIBIA 2015

Select target paragraph3