Bryant who has also served as the Public Information Officer for the UN Operations in Cote d’Ivoire in 2007 and the World Food Programme, WFP, Public Information Officer in Kinshasa, DRC, in 2010, was one of the resource persons at an international workshop on Election Reporting in Limbe, Southwest region of Cameroon, recently.

In this exclusive interview granted AfricaNews, the American born journalist, amongst other issues, looks at the critical role of journalism in the electoral processes of a country and the place of the new media in election reporting.

AfricaNews: What is the media’s role in elections?

Elizabeth: The media has a key role in elections. Essentially, it is the role that we should be playing every day, but highlighted during the election(s) season. One of them is to inform the public of their right as citizens to vote, who the parties are, what their platforms and candidates are. The other side is the media’s role as ‘watchdogs’, to report abuses that go on before, during and after elections, party campaigns, the voting processes, the irregularities going on, trading of votes for money and also complications that may arise after declaration of voting results.

The next issue is what next for Cameroon? Assuming that the October 2011 Presidential Poll successfully goes on, what is the next political process? Is it the Legislative and Municipal Elections that take place next year?

AfricaNews: How should media officials, journalists manage an election(s)?

Elizabeth: It is a huge issue. But I think that we have an incredibly big role to play in terms of simply informing the public. Managing the elections mean covering the parties, particularly covering the public by doing vox-pops, going to villages, getting, particularly young people, women and older people to think and talk about their concerns, not only when it comes to political parties but other issues like health care, environment, development, jobs, the economy and more. It is an amazingly a huge role and task to fill, to the best of our ability.

AfricaNews: What is expected from the journalists before, during and after an election?

Elizabeth: We have to inform the public where the polling station is, how to vote, when is the opening hour of voting because for some, it will be the first time voting, educate the women and people with the right voting age on their right to vote, telling them that they have the liberty to vote or not and not a village chief or a father voting on their behalf. They have a right to vote, should know which direction their country is going to and who should be their next President.

AfricaNews: Where is the place of the state or public media in reporting elections?

Elizabeth: It should be in same place as the private media. If you are a journalist, you are a journalist. You want to get all the sides of the story; you will not cover only the ruling party candidate and also the opposition party candidate, without distinction.

AfricaNews: And the private media?

Elizabeth: All reporters have the same role; informing the public and being the watchdog. It doesn’t matter whether you are a reporter for the state or private media.

AfricaNews: Where is the place of the media and business concerns in an election reporting?

Elizabeth: The first and last concern is the public. Our client is the people of Cameroon in your case and the people of America in my case (Elizabeth Bryant). Our readers, listeners, viewers constitute our concerns. We (journalists) are their eyes and ears, telling them the happenings.

AfricaNews: How will you define the new media as treated in your discourse during the workshop?

Elizabeth: The new media is the stuff we are beginning to hear about and to use, which include; face book, flicker, YouTube, webcasting, twitters, blogging and more. That is playing an increasingly big role in politics and driving events around the world, especially the Arab Spring, which include the Tunisian Uprising, Egypt and we are seeing it in Syria.

We are also seeing the impact of the new media in sub Saharan Africa countries like Uganda, Ethiopia, where they are face book pages calling on Ugandans, Ethiopians to have anti-government demonstrations.

The new media is going to play a big role in sub Saharan Africa, may be not right away because the penetration of the internet still remains limited. However, we are already seeing it. We see some elected officials using the new media, Jacob Zuma in South Africa, who has an incredibly new media savvy. I am one of those persons who is pushing journalists to begin using the new media, including the video, the newspapers and the television.

AfricaNews: How relevant are the new media in election reporting?

Elizabeth: Increasingly, the new media will be relevant in our reporting. The new media will be relevant in having a special page on the election(s). It could be a radio, newspaper or television, where you could have a website and a page on the election(s), with links to your radio programme(s) as the case may be, ask the public to write to your email, talking about what their issues are, do informal surveys, ask the people who they are going to vote for, do surveys on women, let them give their top five issues as the election(s) build up. The new media will play a key role in every aspect, even in our daily lives, whether we like it or not, though it will come slowly in sub Saharan Africa.

AfricaNews: What is the contribution of the new media in the development of journalism?

Elizabeth: The new media constitute an extra tool in our tool kit as journalists. The basic skills are still going to be needed; go out and do the vox-pop, interview experts, know what is happening, be on the field when things are happening, be at the polling stations to look out for potential abuses, talk to people, national and international monitors, observers and get all the necessary angles of the story. In the sidelines of our traditional roles, we can use the new media to do blogs for our stories, use tweets in our reporting, and have a webpage and more. It is just one more tool to help us in our reporting, repackage and re-purpose our materials to do a radio or newspaper tweets as the case may be and many other forms.

AfricaNews: With your experience across the African continent, how will you explain the increasing interest of some countries in the use of Information and Communication Technologies, ICT, and others crawling in that sector?

Elizabeth: Countries are just realising that this is the new technology; governments and curious people are grabbing and following the trend. Governments and political leaders are seeing and using it as a new way to reach the people and electorates, the case of Jacob Zuma in South Africa who is very interested and making good use of the new media.

This is also true of Paul Kagame of Rwanda and some Presidents in Africa. It is making the citizens participate in governance and encouraging citizen journalism.

AfricaNews: What’s your message to Cameroonian & African journalists?

Elizabeth: I wish them good luck as they warm up to cover the upcoming election in Cameroon. I wish it is free and fair as much as possible. I am looking forward to following the coverage of my colleagues in Cameroon, during the election period. I hope I come back to Cameroon. It is same message I have for all African journalists.