AKEED - Although increasing prices and modifying the value of the sales tax on a list of commodities was the main development last month, this has not reflected on the performance of the media, which mostly covered items related to bread subsidy and its payment mechanism. Does this case of media coverage in the most widely read outlets constitute an example of creating a parallel news agenda and diverting attention to other issues?

A monitoring conducted by AKEED of the performance of media outlets vis-à-vis the recent government economic decisions and their repercussions tried to answer a question about which event had greater newsworthiness: Lifting flour subsidy and raising prices and taxes or the mechanism of delivering government cash subsidy.

The AKEED team used several search engines to monitor the content of 10 media outlets, including five daily newspapers and five news websites followed by the public between 18 December 2017 and 18 January 2018.

The results of the search showed that the 10 media outlets handled bread subsidy issues and raising prices in 358 items. The format that presented the issue included news, reports, and op-ed articles at a daily average of around 35 items in the 10 media outlets and 3.5 items in each outlet.

The monitoring showed that the items in the newspapers on the cash subsidy were greater than the items on raising prices: 37% of the news content was devoted to coverage of the cash subsidy, while 33% was devoted to raising prices and 30% to the cash subsidy and raising prices together.

The monitoring showed that the news content related to cash subsidy for bread was highest in Al Dustour by 45%, followed by Al Ghad with 40%, Al Rai with 37%, Al Sabeel with 32%, and Al Anbat with 32%. It also showed that Al Sabeel was the highest in publishing news content on raising prices by 39%, followed by Al Anbat with 36%, Al Dustour with 32%, Al Ghad with 30%, and finally Al Rai with 29%.

In terms of the format, news constituted 54%, reports 18%, and op-ed articles 28%. Features and investigative reports were not observed. Al Rai came first in publishing news on the cash subsidy by 63%, followed by Al Dustour, and then Al Ghad, Al Anbat, and Al Sabeel.

It was noticed that 18% of the news content was in the form of press reports. This is an acceptable percentage to explain the details of these economic issues, which are of interest to all segments of Jordanian society. As for op-ed articles, they accounted for 28%. Al Dustour came first with 35%, while the rest of the newspapers were 24% each.

News Websites

Over the past month, the five news websites have published around 200 items on cash subsidy and raising prices. We notice that the interest of the websites in raising prices was higher than in the subsidy. Compared with the newspapers, the interest of the websites in raising prices was higher.

The monitoring showed that 55% of the news content on the websites handled raising prices, while 30% of the items handled the subsidy and 15% handled both the subsidy and raising prices in parallel.

The monitoring showed that Saraya, 74%, and Ammon, 66%, focused the most on raising prices, followed by Khaberni, Roya, and Jafra. Roya showed the greatest interest in the subsidy by around 53% of its content, then Jafra by 41%, and Khaberni by 35%.

The news format dominated the content on websites by 65%. This agrees with the nature of news websites, which usually present short and quick items. This was followed by reports by 22% and then op-ed articles by 13%.

Nature of Coverage

We notice that interest in raising prices came late and over the past few days after the government"s announcement of modifying taxes. Previously, interest had focused on bread subsidy through following statements by the government and the Finance Committee in the Lower House of Parliament on this issue and the value of the subsidy and ways to deliver it to citizens.

While newspapers were inclined more toward using the notion of modifying taxes, the websites used the notion of raising prices. In the news coverage, we notice that raising taxes did not generate a broad discussion, compared with bread subsidy.

Public Interest and News Agenda

Mazin Irsheid, a specialist in economic affairs, said that "over the past two months, the government"s media message has focused on the cash subsidy that will be paid to citizens in terms of the amount and the date of implementation without explaining the details of the decisions that will be announced and that include raising the prices of commodities other than bread. This has reflected negatively on the performance of media outlets in general." He added: "In general, the Jordanian media did not play a role in promoting government decisions on raising prices, but its performance has been weak in accessing information and presenting it to readers. Meanwhile, some media outlets adopted a policy of promoting the subsidy and not focusing on the other economic decisions on raising the prices of a large list of commodities."

Fayiq Hjazeen, a journalist specialized in economic affairs, acknowledged that news and reports in the media have clearly focused on the cash subsidy and its mechanisms at the expense of other government decisions to raise prices and taxes "because this is the message that the government wants to send to citizens. In other words, the media has been directed to promote the subsidy." Hjazeen noted that the lack of information was an important reason behind the failure of the media to discuss the package of government decisions related to raising the prices of a large list of commodities. He said that he tried to get a list of the commodities before the decision was made, but all his attempts failed due to government discretion.

AKEED had previously published two reports about the coverage of Jordanian media of the decisions on raising the prices of bread and taxes and the conflicting statements on them under the headlines "Contradiction in Official Statements on Budget, Subsidy Figures Confuses Media Performance," and "Mulki"s "Bareezeh" and Value of Subsidy: Parliamentary, Government Speculation in Media."