Media house in SA crucial for ensuring healthy democracy: Bird

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The Director of Media Monitoring Africa, William Bird says media houses in South Africa are crucial in ensuring a healthy democracy. He says media houses also have the responsibility to encourage citizens to actively participate in the legislative decision-making process which has an impact on their lives.

Bird says this is particularly important ahead of the 2024 national elections.

“I think one of the key failing of our media in covering elections, is that instead of actually determining and setting up what the key issues are for the audience or letting their audience say these are the key issues for us that we want to know about in the lead up to the election period, they tend to let the agenda be determined by political parties. In other words, the political parties are the ones that set up and frame the narrative.”