Nigeria’s delayed elections

Nigerians finally vote on March 28 in a presidential election that has already been postponed once. The two leading candidates are the incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari who was head of state in Nigeria in the 1980s after taking power in a military coup.

It is a battle that has been fought on the political stage and on the airwaves, with stations aligned with each side coming out in full force. For local journalists trying to cover the election there have been myriad challenges – from alleged government censorship, political pressure and the ever present spectre of Boko Haram.

With the growing backlog of journalist visas in the lead up to the vote, the primary challenge for foreign reporters has been getting into the country.

Talking us through the media side of an election held in Africa’s most populous country is: Lai Mohammed, the press officer with the Buhari camp; Eneka Okeagwu, who manages press and publicity for President Goodluck Jonathan; Anthony Akiotu, the managing director at the AIT channel; author and journalist Uche Ezechukwu; and Adeola Fayehun from Sahara Reporters.

Other stories on our radar this week: In Yemen, a prominent journalist has been murdered in what analysts are calling a politically motivated attack; the New York Times has announced that it will launch a magazine in Hong Kong and Macau in what looks like another effort to break into the Chinese market; and the battle for freedom of information online takes two different turns in India and Turkey.

Indian media’s rural blind spot

According to some statistics, around 800 million of India’s population of 1.2 billion live and work in rural areas.

However, you would not guess that from the coverage – or lack thereof – that rural issues receive in the country’s mainstream media. The majority of news outlets devote most of their coverage to the big four: politics, big business, Bollywood and cricket.

Despite the vast array of newspapers and television channels in India there has only ever been one rural affairs editor at a mainstream news outlet but he recently left the job after his newspaper restructured. There is now no-one working that beat.

In this week’s feature The Listening Post’s Meenakshi Ravi looks at the Indian media’s rural blind spot.

We close the show this week with a quirky video that questions the value of art. To promote a new street art collection from the Swedish franchise IKEA, a Dutch production company called Life Hunters took one of those artworks – that costs €10 in store – and put it in a museum next to paintings that are worth millions. They then asked some art aficionados to critique the work and assess its value. The video has racked up 2.25 million hits online which is not far off what one “expert” would have you pay for the piece.