Generating Election Story Ideas to Reflect Diversity

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Generating Election Story Ideas to Reflect
Diversity
Paula Fray Regional Director Africa Inter Press
Service www.ipsnews.net/africa

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INTER PRESS SERVICE (IPS) AFRICA

• The Inter Press Service (IPS) is a communication
  institution with a global news agency at its
  core. IPS in action means
• Providing news and content
• Dissemination and networking
• Capacity Building

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INTER PRESS SERVICE (IPS) AFRICA
From Polls to Polls Covering Elections on the
African Continent
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FROM POLLS TO POLLS

• Raising the voice and visibility of women in
  elections
• Finding the untold stories
• Profiling women in elected office/running for
  office
• Reflecting the diversity of women in politics

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GENERATING IDEAS

• Plan, plan, plan. for the expected
• Plan for the expected unexpected
• Creating (brainstorming) an ideas basket
• With a theme running through the coverage

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GENERATING IDEAS

• An ideas plan to include
• Pre-election processes
• Electoral system
• Campaigning
• Voters Issues
• Preparations for elections
• Elections coverage plan
• Voting
• Counting the votes
• Announcing the winners
• Finding the also rans
• Post-election coverage
• Who is in office?
• How effective are they?
• Are they delivering campaign promises?

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SOME LESSONS

• Good stories start with good story ideas
• It is an active process of looking for new
  voices, new stories, new narratives
• It takes time to build trust with new sources
  particularly those not media savvy
• Unusual stories are often found in unusual
  places with unusual questions
• The follow-up should be diarised

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SOME LESSONS

• Profiling the opposite ends
• Monitoring trends
• What do new voters think?
• The use of technology
• More than event-driven explaining the process
• Avoiding he said/she said and reviewing impact
• Giving voters a voice what issues are voters
  thinking about?

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SOME LESSONS

• FROM THE EDITOR
• Dont be afraid to explore difficult issues.
• Is the personal political? Research by the Inter
  Parliamentary Union finds that the single most
  important deterrent for women to enter politics
  is their domestic responsibilities.
• What are the issues they are campaigning on? The
  opinion pollster AfroBarometer regularly reports
  that less than one-third of Africans put AIDS
  among their top three priorities.

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SOME LESSONS A CHECKLIST

• Created a detail checklist to encourage a broader
  range of questions
• Checklist included
• Context
• Data Mining
• Language
• Sources

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SOME LESSONS A CHECKLIST

• Context
• Explaining the electoral system and its impact on
  candidates
• Highlighting the factors which inhibit the entry
  of marginalized groups
• Looking at the trends of who is standing
• Which political parties have fielded women
  candidates and which ones have not? Have certain
  political parties done better than others, and if
  so, why?
• Do any of the parties manifestoes or blueprints
  for action speak to the issues of gender equality
  and womens rights?
• What are the issues voters care about?

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SOME LESSONS A CHECKLIST

• Data Mining
• Does your story include data on the numbers of
  women in the following structures
• Cabinet positions
• Parliament
• Political parties executives
• Is all the data sourced?
• Is the data used in ways to illustrate trends
  rather than isolated numbers?

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SOME LESSONS A CHECKLIST

• Language
• Does the story contain language that promotes
  sexism, gender bias or discrimination, or gender
  stereotypes?
• Are there any specific adjectives used to
  describe the character or physical appearance of
  women politicians or candidates that convey bias?
• Is the physical description of a female
  politician or candidate relevant to the story?
  Would you apply the use of physical description
  equally to men and women politicians or
  candidates?
• Is the language used inclusive of women and men?

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SOME LESSONS A CHECKLIST

• Sources
• Does the story include a balance of female and
  male sources?
• Do the sources interviewed provide a diversity of
  views and perspectives on the coverage issue?
• Are all the sources from the same side of or
  across the political spectrum?
• Does the story only include politicians and
  political analysts as sources? Your readers,
  listeners and viewers as well as civil society
  should also have a voice.
• Does the story only include the views and
  perspectives of women and men in one age group?

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STORIES FROM THE FIELD

• Promises vs reality
• Interactive media audience questions
• My story

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Comments, Questions? Thank You