Addis Ababa, 18 March 2015 (WIC) - The Ethiopian Broadcast Authority is about to issue official letters to all public and commercial media asking them to better facilitate studio and recording services to political parties during their election campaign. This comes after various representatives of the media and the election desk held a meeting to discuss the state of free air time usage by political parties and the media’s assistance in that regard.

On the first part of the meeting, various representatives of the media’s election desk presented their reports, in which most claimed that the political parties are only using a modest part of their allotted air time so far. Limitation in the executing capabilities of political parties and strict observance of procedures on the part of few media outlets among other things were cited as reasons for the modest performance.

Although the trend is improving compared to previous elections and the performance can somehow be called satisfactory, the Ethiopian Broadcast Authority Director General Zeray Asgedom, on the occasion said that there are still huge gaps left on the media not utilized by the parties.

“Leaving aside their (political parties) own problems for the modest performance, we should be looking into and give solution to the part of the problems that’s related to the media”, said Zeray.

As a consequence, the participants have come to an understanding on issues ranging from what constitutes assistance, its demarcations, on the part of the media up to how to standardize the different observances of various media have on the ’36 hour deadline’ among other things. Pertaining to media assistance, Zeray said that as long as there is no problem on the content of the message of the parties, the media on their part should go out of their way to assist them. “What if we help them by going three steps towards them”, said Zeray.

He further stated that in light with this, the Authority is about to give out a letter that notifies the public media to assist the parties, while asking commercial media to support them with similar spirit. “36 million people are readying themselves to hear and see various alternatives and make an informed decision”, said Zeray and added as the media are a resource of the public, they have the duty to provide all information available.

An understanding has come about between participants of the meeting, ranging from what differentiates criticism and defamation and the theme songs political parties use during their airtime from the perspective of the Election Law of the country. During the meeting, it was suggested for State media outlets to take the initiative to organize and host debates among political parties. (EH)