Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) is conducting bi-monthly monitoring and analysis activities in order to determine trends in coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of sources in South Africanmedia. This is a series and findings are compared against each other to show improvement, or thelack thereof. Three analyses in the series have been published so far and findings from both reveal that the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, the Minister of Health Dr. Zweli Mkhize and the Minister of Finance Tito Mboweni often speak in coverage around Covid-19. This therefore shows that the majority of sources in coverage of Covid-19 in South African media have been mostly black males affiliated to government, this at the expense of other affiliations such as , researchers, scientists and other experts in the health sector etc. These sources speaking could be attributed to government’s efforts to curb dis/misinformation around Covid-19.MMA’s Director, William Bird and Head of Programmes, Thandi Smith say in their commentary ondis/misinformation, “A crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic creates a perfect opportunity for thosewho wish to cause confusion, chaos and public harm. Misinformation and disinformation enablesthem to do just that.”This fourth analysis being launched and whose monitoring period was from the 17th of May until the30th of May, 2020, shows that while there is not much improvement in sources, there was anewcomer in terms of topics these sources were speaking on. This newcomer was in the form ofDr.Glenda Gray and the controversy her remarks on government’s lockdown regulations caused. Dr.Gray is the President of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC).READ THE FULL ANALYSIS HEREThis analysis can be accessed from MMA’s website (www.mediamonitoringafrica.org) as well associal media platforms ( Facebook and Twitter) on which it will be shared.

For enquiries, please contact Lister Namumba, the Monitoring, Research and Analysis ProgrammeManager by sending an email to listerr@mma.org.za.