An important element in the media environment is the degree of professionalism and experience of journalists and other media practitioners. It is common that journalists in a country that has only recently emerged from a highly restrictive political system will lack many of the skills and professional standards of their counterparts in a country with a long history of media freedom.
Sometimes, the media will be emerging from a situation in which journalism was not freely practised at all. In that case, there may well be a tendency to abuse new-found freedoms with poorly researched and inaccurate stories. Often, journalists in these situations will simply not know what professional standards are expected of them: they will not have professional bodies or trade unions with codes of conduct. They will lack the basic skills for investigating, checking, and writing or broadcasting stories. In particular, journalists who are approaching their first free election are likely to be unfamiliar with even the simplest aspects of the process. Often, there will be no facilities for training journalists - or at least none that equips them with the skills that they need to play the "watchdog" role of the media in a democracy.
However, the experience of an authoritarian regime may not be entirely negative. In many cases, courageous independent journalism has played an important part in pressuring dictatorships to open up the political space. Journalists who have successfully investigated and published sensitive stories in such a media environment will have developed professional skills that are unmatched by their colleagues in friendlier circumstances. In the context of an election, the professional challenge will be to bring these skills to bear on a new and unfamiliar set of stories to be reported.
