In
most legal frameworks, regulations apply to both publicly and privately-funded
media. In addition to ethical obligations pertaining to all journalists and
broadcasters, public media are also accountable to the electorate, who are
their funders and, ultimately, their owners. Hence it is usually assumed - and
this assumption is decidedly based on international law - that public media
should be politically impartial.
There
are also obligations that may pertain to public media alone, for example direct
access broadcasting. Direct access broadcasting is the term used to describe
access given to parties and candidates to broadcast their campaign material. It
is distinguished from election campaign news coverage in that the latter is
created or selected by the media outlets. In some frameworks there are no legal
requirements for private media to carry direct access broadcasting or
advertisements from political parties during an election campaign. Yet, for the
public media, there usually is such a requirement. Much of this section is
devoted to the issues that arise from these three questions:
- Will direct access be
through paid political advertising or free party election broadcasts?
- How will time be allocated
between the parties or candidates?
- At what time of day will
direct access slots be broadcast?
Another
aspect of the responsibility of the public media flows from the government's
obligation to inform and educate the electorate on how to exercise their rights
in an election - voter education.
The
obligations of public media have been well summarized in a series of guidelines
developed by the freedom of expression group ARTICLE 19[i].
These guidelines have been widely disseminated and adopted since the 1990s.
For descriptions of
what constitutes public and private media, see the section on
Media Ownership and Elections.
[i] Guidelines for Elections Broadcasting in
Transitional Democracies, (London: ARTICLE 19, 1994) http://www.article19.org/data/files/pdfs/tools/electionbroadcastingtrans.pdf
