Summary
Government officials should not abuse their legal resources or custody over public finance to exert control over media content.
Obligations
Election Parts
Quotes
- Voters should be able to form opinions independently, free of violence or threat of violence, compulsion, inducement or manipulative interference of any kind.
- The exercise of power and the use of public funds by the state, the granting of customs duty privileges, the arbitrary and discriminatory placement of official advertising and government loans, the concession of radio and television broadcast frequencies, among others, with the intent to put pressure on and punish or reward the opinions they express threaten freedom of expression, and must be explicitly prohibited by law.
- The media should have the freedom and resources at all times to fulfil their task of providing accurate and reliable reporting on matters of public interest, in particular concerning vital democratic processes and activities, such as elections, referendums and public consultations on matters of general interest.
- States should also ensure stable, sustainable, transparent and adequate funding for public service media on a multiyear basis in order to guarantee their independence from governmental, political and market pressures and enable them to provide a broad range of pluralistic information and diverse content.
- States shall not use their power over the placement of public advertising as a means to interfere with media content.
- Checking the media: their affiliations, their availability to political parties and the ease of access of the public to them; are they “weighted” in favour of any particular cause or are they truly independent? are they controlled by one political party?
- While noting that art. 19, para. 3, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides that the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression carries with it special duties and responsibilities, to refrain from imposing restrictions which are not consistent with paragraph 3 of that article including on: The free flow of information and ideas, including practices such as the banning or closing of publications or other media and the abuse of administrative measures and censorship.
- Measures should be put in place to ensure that government advertising is not used as a vehicle for political interference in the media.
- Politicians and public officials should refrain from taking actions which undermine the independence of the media, such as interfering politically in the operations of or taking commercial control over regulatory bodies or commercial, community or public service media, or putting pressure on online platforms to engage in content regulation.
- Governments and public bodies should never abuse their custody over public finances to try to influence the content of media reporting; the placement of public advertising should be based on market considerations.
- In its assessment of the media environment, an EU EOM will consider the broader obligations of state authorities, including the responsibility not to limit unjustifiably the activities of the media, or impede journalists in their reporting, as well as their responsibility to promote pluralism and freedom of the media.
- Media outlets should not be required by law to carry messages from specified political figures, such as the president.
- We are of the view that elected political officials and members of government who are media owners must separate their political activities from their media interests.