Broadcasters must aim at fair coverage; that’s the right of the listener and viewer

The Sunday Times editorial on ‘NEC’s impractical guidelines’ published on October 13, states that “if any media outlet wishes to support any one particular candidate it should be at liberty to do so” and then in the next paragraph, adds: “In democracies in the West, media endorse candidates.”

The editorial is absolutely correct - there is no justification preventing any print media publicly supporting a particular candidate, provided that they do it openly after making a public declaration to their readers. This has happened many a time in Sri Lanka and in Western democracies. But the comment that media in general (both print and broadcast media) should be allowed to support a candidate of their choice is detrimental to democratic electioneering unless we make a clear distinction between print and broadcast media. In that sense to imply that broadcast media in the West endorse the candidates is somewhat misleading.

It is a common regulatory practice in most mature democracies to prevent broadcast media organisations from taking sides on controversial issues, including promoting a candidate or a party of their choice during the elections. Broadcast frequencies are a public property. Unlike the newspapers or the websites, only a privileged few are licensed to operate broadcasting services. Broadcast media have a greater outreach and influence in shaping public opinion. They cannot undermine the public trust which requires them to maintain due impartiality and fairness in reporting controversial issues and in covering electoral politics. Thus, licensee broadcast media owners cannot utilise the medium to shape public opinion according to their private interests and to censor the information they don’t want listeners and viewers to know. The regulatory law should obligate the impartiality of broadcast media and prevent the broadcaster from censoring viewpoints they dislike.

Most mature democracies have provisions to ensure fairness and impartiality when treating controversial issues in broadcast programmes. Accordingly, the licensees are prevented not only from censoring important viewpoints they dislike but also from giving undue prominence to a particular view or opinions of a particular person or a party the licensee might determine to promote.

The absence of an impartiality and fairness provision in the law would enable private broadcasters to collectively promote or oppose a particular viewpoint or a particular person of their choice.

In fact, Section 320 of the Communication Act (Ofcom) of the United Kingdom, prohibits licensee media owners from broadcasting their own views and opinions on any of the following matters; (a) matters of political or industri

al controversy;

(b) matters relating to current pub

lic policy; and

(c) matters influencing the outcome of elections and referendums held in the United Kingdom or any other country. Illustrating this point, Cardiff University Professor Dr. Justin Lewis recently pointed out that if there was no broadcast impartiality rule, the British Labour Party would not have achieved the biggest poll shift since 1945 during the last British elections, as all the major newspapers were supporting the Conservative Party without giving fair coverage to the Labour Party and its policies. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch directed all his newspapers to support the Conservative Party, but he was prevented from using his broadcasting network to do so due to the legal obligation of broadcasters to preserve their impartiality in reporting controversial public policy debates including during elections.

There are some who believe that each private broadcasting organisation should be free to take its own position on any of the controversial issues it wishes to cover. They are of the view that if people want to know other viewpoints, they are free to listen to different broadcasting services which might report on other aspects of the issue. Irrespective of such expectations, what if all the major broadcasters decided to censor dissenting viewpoints in order to promote a particular viewpoint of their choice?

For example, what if all major broadcasters decided to oppose a particular policy decision and censor viewpoints favourable to such a policy reaching their listeners or viewers. This position would lead big spenders and even external forces who want to shape Sri Lankan public opinion to buy the allegiance of private broadcasters to support their intentions.

The argument that broadcasting organisations should be allowed to take their own positions in presenting controversial issues contravenes the basic norms of journalism which require media organisations to provide a fair coverage of all relevant facts and dimensions in their reporting. Without significant reach committed to reflecting an impartial diversity of views (as opposed to partial limited views) there is likely to be a polarizing effect as the public limits their information sources to those with which they are pre-disposed to agree.

More than the right of broadcasters to side with the choice of their owner, what is important in broadcasting is the right of the listeners and viewers to receive fair and impartial coverage from any broadcasting service he tunes into, without forcing him to surf channels to get the positions and viewpoints of different candidates and parties. We need an enabling regulatory law for broadcasters to ensure that.

No one needs a licence to start a newspaper or a website to support a particular candidate, but broadcasters are licensed to use frequencies only in the public interest and not for the political interests of their owner.