Are media houses able to promote the participation of women and minorities in the electoral processes and elections? And enhance media literacy of election officials and the public at large? Are media reports able to enhance electoral integrity and democratic development? The imperative of answering these key questions is the major reason behind the monitoring of print and online media by the International Press Centre (IPC). To kick start the process, the organisation on Friday September 23, and Monday September 26, 2022 trained 12 Media Monitors to prepare them for the monitoring of the coverage and reportage of the electoral processes and the 2023 elections by the print and online media. The essence of the 18-month activity that commenced on October 3, 2023, is to assess the level of compliance with professional and ethical standards by newspapers, including online ones, selected for the exercise. The training of the monitors is one of the activities under component 4 (Support to media) of the European Union Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria-Phase 2 (EUSDGN II) project, being implemented by IPC, along with its partner, the Institute for Media and Society. The overall goal of the media component is to “Support the consolidation of democracy in Nigeria with the media (broadcast, print and online media) helping to facilitate the key ingredient of credible elections through engagement and professionalism in coverage and reportage of the electoral processes.” The specific objective is to ensure that, “The Media, including New and Social Media, provides fair, accurate, ethical and inclusive coverage of the Electoral Process.” Bringing in the finest, the two-day training, was facilitated by Mr. Edetaen Ojo, Executive Director of Media Rights Agenda (MRA), David Ajikobi, Nigeria Editor – Africa Check, and Mr. Sanmi Falobi, Project Manager – IPC. The exercise which took place at the IPC conference hall, in Lagos-Nigeria, covered topics and practical sessions ranging from; media monitoring basics, processes and methodologies of media monitoring, philosophical basis and technicalities involved in media monitoring, the media monitoring qualitative and quantitative indices, the standards for assessing/analysing media reportage, and the coding system, fact checking and media monitoring, spotting and tracking fake news online and offline. The trainees recruited in this new segment, expressed a high level of enthusiasm about the impact of the activity and actively participated in the training sessions. They were motivated to begin their new journey as media monitors. The monitoring activity itself has started with a daily content monitoring, and analysis of 15 Nigerian national/regional newspapers print, including (The Nation, Guardian, Punch, Premium Times among others) and online news media (The Cable, Order Paper, Daily Trust among others), along with the INEC news website and twitter handles on the trends and issues in media coverage of the electoral process. Among others, the monitoring is being done within the context of the expectation of the Nigerian Media Code of Election Coverage, which spells out the responsibilities expected of journalists and other media professionals at elections. The Media Election Code was endorsed by umbrella media professional bodies and associations, and close to 300 individual media outlets in 2018. It enumerates what journalists and media management should do to ensure social responsibility and integrity; equitable access for parties and candidates; media access for disadvantaged groups including women, persons with disability and youths; conflict sensitivity and the avoidance of hate speech. It is expected that the media monitoring shall play a key role in the professional reporting of the electoral processes, as the gaps and shortcomings identified from media reportage shall form part of the indices of engagement with journalists and media managers for needed improvements in professionalism. The IPC will achieve this by making use of the results to serve as instruments of engagement with journalists and media managers to address identified gaps and agree on measures for improvement, including evaluating the extent to which elections were fair in terms of freedom of expression by the media, voters and candidates; acting as an early warning system for elections-related violence; promoting the participation of women and minorities; and enhancing media literacy of elections officials and the public at large. EUSDGN PHASE I An earlier phase of the European Union (EU) funded programme, “Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria” (EUSDGN I), kicked off in 2018, with the aim of contributing to the reinforcement of democracy by supporting the Nigerian government and key stakeholders, the Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs), the National Assembly, Political Parties, the Judiciary, Media, Civil Society Organisations and Security Agencies with the primary objective of fostering a more inclusive participatory and representative democracy in Nigeria. IPC in their previous interventions within the EUSDGN Phase I programme, implemented a similar media monitoring activity, between the periods May 2018 to April 2020. The Final Report On The Monitoring Of Media Coverage Of 2019 Elections from twelve print and online newspapers; The Punch, The Guardian, Daily Sun, Vanguard, ThisDay, Nigerian Tribune, The Nation, Leadership, Daily Trust, Blue Print (online), The Cable (online), and Premium Times (online) identified that the media were not remarkably inclusive in their coverage of the 2019 elections as some constituents in the society were largely ignored. It further revealed that women, persons with disability (PWD) were among the groups that received little coverage from the media during elections. It was also observed that there were remarkable cases of reports that were conflict insensitive, which were capable of inciting violence, the investigations revealed that while majority of the analysed reports met the required standards of sensitivity in reporting, a few did not meet the expectations, these reports were therefore adjudged insensitive. The quarterly monitoring reports were reviewed and presented at media stakeholders’ roundtables to engender open debates and discussions with stakeholders on the thematic focus of the democratic and electoral issues published by the selected media, moreover the IPC used the quarterly reports of the monitoring exercise to engage with the media and other stakeholders. The activity additionally documented the Key campaign promises, of President Muhammadu Buhari, as the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in the 2019 general elections, which was supposed to
