In most systems different regulations will apply for the publicly and privately-funded media. In addition to the ethical obligations attaching 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 clearly based on international law - that the public media should be politically impartial.
There are other obligations that may attach to the public media alone. In most systems there is no legal requirement 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 flow from this:
- will direct access be through Paid Political Advertising or free party election broadcasts?
- how will the amount of time be allocated between the parties or candidates? See Allocation of Time to Candidates and Parties.
- at what time of day will direct access slots be broadcast? See Timing and Length of Direct Access Slots.
This section also looks at how far it is appropriate for the regulatory body responsible for the media in election times to regulate the editorial content of the public media - that is, those parts of the media's output that are normally under its own editorial control.
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. First elaborated in 1994 to address the problem of ensuring fair coverage in state broadcast media that may have no history of impartial reporting, these guidelines have been widely disseminated and adopted since then. See ARTICLE19 Election Reporting Guidelines.
