Guidelines on Media Coverage of Elections in the SADC Region

These guidelines have been developed to assist media covering elections in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. According to the publication, "credible and fair elections are an essential element of democratic societies. It is during electoral periods that the media play a particularly vital role as they are the main means by which the population is informed, not only about the technicalities of registration, voting, and the counting of ballots but also about the performance of the Electoral Management Body (EMB), the government, and the actions, intentions, and policies of all political players. The media’s job is to create transparency and give space to the diversity of opinions and perspectives and to provide necessary background, context and analysis."
Published by Fesmedia in 2012, these guidelines are the result of deliberations at a regional conference that took place in Johannesburg, South Africa in September 2012. For two days representatives of media houses, freedom of expression organisations, and electoral management bodies discussed and amended the guidelines and adopted them at the end of the conference. As stated in the publication, "the next step needs to be taken by media houses throughout the SADC region, which are called upon to study the guidelines in their national context, adopt them accordingly and implement them via voluntary inhouse mechanisms".
The guidelines consist of the following sections:

• Role of the media in elections
• Conditions necessary for the media to play an effective role
• Ethical considerations in election
• Converged media
• Reporting on election observers and election monitors
• Role of public and private media regarding election advertorials
• SMS survey, phone-ins and talk shows
• Polls
• Reporting results
• Implementation and monitoring of media and election guidelines