Media Credibility During Elections

 Elections are a testing time for media and journalism. While the media has the responsibility to provide fair coverage of the election process and electoral management and impart news, information and ideas on the issues of public interest, the public has the right, in democracy, to receive such information. Likewise, elections draw the maximum media attention among all political activities for about a month. 

During elections, political parties and candidates deliver fiery language and hate speech, draw ethnic tensions to the fore and try to defame the opposition candidates, particularly those who they fear the most. Candidates also present impractical and fantasised plans and make tall claims that might never be fulfilled. For example, a candidate for chairman in a rural municipality has said in his manifesto that he would build a maternity hospital for animals to deliver their babies, manage helicopters to spray seeds and irrigate land in the village. 

Likewise, some of the candidates running for a second term are presenting every achievement, including the programmes implemented by the federal and provincial government, as their own. 

Check, Check and Check 

Cross-verifying the information and checking fake information is the fundamental duty of journalists. This is the method whereby the truth of information is established and the public is saved from misinformation. In the process, it must refrain from providing space to hate speech and events that might incite hatred among communities and institutions. 

Watchdog media is critical but the malady in Nepal can be surmised from the fact that political parties run FM radios, local newspapers and online news portals which are massively abused during the elections. These media are used as a propaganda tool for certain candidates and political parties. Media monitoring of Press Council Nepal during elections in the past has confirmed that media have ignored the principle of balance, accuracy and truth. y. 

However, Nepali media is more attracted to the leaders and, mostly, to the power centres and the public is largely ignored. There are local bodies who have excelled in terms of development and good governance but they seldom get featured in the media.

Political communication 

Political communication inherently is non-linear in a democratic society, and in recent times, parties and candidates massively interact with the public face to face, via social media and town meetings. Mass media should support this process since they are considered the largest and the most powerful public sphere where the two interact. 

The new media, especially the social network, has given a new edge to political and election communication. It is so easy, powerful and effective that many political candidates have begun to optimise it rather than choosing mass media that is expensive, complex and less focused. Hence, journalists have a new source of information that not only provides news information and activities but also helps to verify the details faster. Journalists can also interact with the candidates through social media. 

The crux of political reporting should not be what leaders say but what they should be worried about. There are myriads of issues and challenges in every society that need special attention from the government, political parties and election candidates. The responsibility of the media is to draw their attention to these agendas. Another challenge for election coverage is pre-election surveys and exit polls. Many a time, the survey is conducted by the political party or some agencies do it on their behalf and use it to propagate their victory in the election. 

Falling prey to the public relations gimmick of the candidates and unhappening promises would be a most unbecoming event during election coverage which will damage the image of both the journalists and their media institution. 

Sources of money

Confrontations make good news, however, extra care should be maintained while covering such incidents so that a journalist doesn't incite further clashes and social damage. Similarly, money is another newsmaker. Reporters should follow the chain of political finance – the sources of income for a candidate. We have seen numerous reports on how the candidates are spending a large sum of money on food, fuel, election merchandise, mobile phone recharge and cash distribution. But there is a poor reporting of the sources of that money. People don't give away their hard-earned money in donations. Corrupt government officials and businessmen are the major sources of such donations. For them, it is an investment and they will force the elected candidates into some policy or other forms of corruption which will be detrimental to the development and wellbeing of the concerned local body. 

Many reporters covering politics and elections for the media assume that knowing the political system and parties would be enough to be a reporter writing on the beat but an understanding of geography and economy are the other two crucial pillars of political reporting. An election promise that you laugh at could be one of the important needs in a certain local unit or a district. Therefore, a journalist must be watchful that his/her political bias wouldn't be expressed in their news and writings. 

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 7 May 2022.