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.