The Liberia Media Center on Friday, May 15 released two publications on the implementation of the country’s Poverty Reduction Strategy - a “Journalists’ Guide on Reporting Liberia PRS” and a ground-breaking Media Monitoring Report and assessment of information flow on the process. The project is jointly funded by TrustAfrica based in Senegal and Humanity United from California, USA.

The manual and report was formally launched by Liberia’s Minister of Information, the Rev. Dr. Laurence Bropleh, and seeks to close the knowledge gap surrounding the dynamics of poverty reduction strategies in general and the Liberian Poverty Reduction Strategy in particular.

Results from the review show that though the media has produced an average of fourteen (14) news items daily from January 2009- April 2009-a ratio of at least one news item to each of the fourteen outlets-, the quality of content remains a daunting challenge for both the print and broadcast sectors. Combined, both sectors produced an impressive 1,534 articles on development related issues and the Poverty Reduction Strategy process. But there’s a serious content quality problem especially amongst the smallest and least funded outlets. Troubling also is the poor performance of the state-owned media (ELBC), which receives government subsidy but performed very poorly on covering the process. There’s a need for conversation regarding the future of ELBC, as in its current form it will not provide the required appeal to public trust and respectability.

Prominence

Disaggregated by medium, the Daily Observer Newspaper published the most articles (136), while the Informer Newspaper devoted the most space (46.7 pages) to PRS issues. For radio, Truth FM recorded the most number of articles (191), though Star Radio gave more airtime (8hrs) to relevant PRS and development issues.

Context

Close to 50% of all newspaper articles emanated from events, while 24.7% of stories broadcast by the radio stations were interviews. While the radio stations performed quite well during the period, the findings showed a steady reduction in the numbers of articles broadcast monthly by radio stations, and showed an undulating projection amongst the newspapers, with April showing 23.8% of all articles published.

Both print and broadcast media were woefully low on investigations. Newspaper investigations accounted for 4.8% of the articles published, while radio recorded 2.3%. The News Newspaper conducted the most (12) investigations during the period under review. Worthy of praise also is the New Democrat Newspaper for the quality and depth of investigation on PRS issues and the County Development Agenda.

Diversity

Thirty point three percent (30.3%) of stories the radio stations aired were exhaustive while only 14.7% of all newspaper articles were exhaustive. For the period, Star Radio reported the most (11.3%) number of exhaustive stories, while ELBC recorded the lowest at 0.8%. Twelve point three percent (12.3%) of all radio stories were balanced, of which 9.6% were from Star Radio. ELBC again recorded no balanced article.

Reports Across PRS Pillars

Assessing reports across pillars, Infrastructure and Basic Services recorded the highest number of PRS and development stories totaling 671, followed by Economic Revitalization with 370. Good Governance and Rule of Law got 391, while Peace and National Security came least with 102 PRS stories.

The study reveals that close to half (40.54%) of the interviewed institutions do not have any feedback mechanism to establish whether information disseminated is received by the public.

Most institutions (45.9%) cited the lack of funding as the major hindrance to meeting PRS deliverables. This is a serious challenge to a government struggling to manage public expectations and reinforces the urgency of the international community to provide support pledged within the framework of the PRSP.

Where government has made good strives in meeting deliverables, progress has been poorly communicated. This calls into question the efficacy of the government communication strategy and the need to streamline this strategy across various pillars, as in its current form the strategy is more of awareness raising then a sustained approach to keeping information in the public domain both at the local and national levels. Also, the virtual lack of resources at the Ministry of Information suggests that centralizing the strategy would otherwise impede the timely dissemination of information on progress across the various pillars.

On the whole, the report noted that the current framework for reporting on PRS gains and deliverables is quite cumbersome and requires urgent review. Further complexities are noted in the county reporting framework, where the many channels and information interlocutors themselves present a burden for access to information on progress.

The County Development Agenda and CRs
At the level of the County Development Agenda, there’s a huge knowledge gap amongst Community Radio Station (CRs) personnel. Though roughly half of the 28 county radio stations interviewed in the fifteen counties said they were consulted during the formulation of the CDA, none of the CDAs propose any support for Community Radio Stations. A staggering 71.4% of CRs have not seen the CDA, while roughly 71% of CRs are aware of PRS deliverables.

In its recommendation, LMC called on the Liberian Government to ensure the immediate passage of the Access to Information Act, as this could provide citizens an opportunity to demand development information and progress on the implementation of the CDA and PRSP. The group called on government line ministries and agencies to develop a strategic framework for publicizing the gains made by their institutions on the PRS and to get feedbacks from the people about the pitfalls of some of the PRS initiatives as a way of minimizing the gaps within the implementation of the PRS.

An LMC statement said, while making copies of the CDA available to CRs, the County Development Steering Committees (CDSCs) should include in their annual plans support to community radio stations as a means of bridging the communication gaps within their agendas and utilizing community radio stations as a pivotal link in ensuring widespread publicity on the PRS at the county, district and clan levels;

For the media:

Ø There should be mentoring for media institutions/practitioners and media houses should either establish specialized desk to cover the process or mainstream PRS themes in the core beats;

Ø That in addition to holding workshops for Monrovia-based journalists, there is a need to decentralize these workshops to include rural-based journalists to enable them professionally cover stories on the PRS and the CDAs on community radio stations;

Ø LMC and other partners should consider setting up an investigative journalism fund on the PRS process to support quality investigation and report on the process

The 4-month review covered fourteen media institutions, including eight (8) local dailies –Daily Observer, The Analyst, The Inquirer, The News, New Democrat, National Chronicle, The Informer and Heritage Newspapers; the thrice weekly Public Agenda – as well as newscast monitored on Radio Veritas, ELBC, Truth FM, Star and Sky FM. from 9:00am to 8:30pm, daily.

Click on the below links for the complete report.

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