Covering elections

 Covering elections: Are journalists safe?

By Qaqamba Matundu

Democracy always rests on the rights to freely express diverse opinions and on the votes of well informed citizens. Media organizations and journalists play a vital role in the electoral process by assuring the dissemination of news and diverse opinions. Media makes deeper knowledge of candidates, parties and their programs. Journalists contribute to the effective participation of citizens in democratic debate by ensuring that issues of public interest remain at the center of election campaigns.

This article is all about dealing in with challenges that can prevent a journalism to cover news during election times and whether or not do I believe journalists have to be card-carrying especially those coverings politics and elections.

During an election time period, a journalist encounters multiple pressures. They may come from government especially in countries which democracy remains fragile; from political parties, which use various means for obtaining favorable coverage and on occasion from a superior, or stockholders or owner of a news organization who is close to a candidate or want to impose a coverage policy.

The first obstacles a journalist can encounter during elections is that, they frequently cover rallies and, campaigns events and protests which can increase their risk of being attacked, harassed and detained”

The obstacles a journalist can face while trying to cover elections is not having proper transportation to cover stories on places that are difficult to reach maybe because of the road being bad and cars can’t be go on it, only helicopters can pass. Not having equipment like mobile devices due to battery low can also prevent a journalist from reporting.

According to Seminar report conflict of interest: journalists vs media owners, media vs public and media vs politicians can also be a problem when covering politics or elections. Now what does that mean? A journalist can be forced by the media owner to write good things about a certain political party or a journalist can be harassed by a politician because of what they have written.

Another obstacle can be “lack of knowledge and planning of the election coverage. In some instances: lack of knowledge has resulted from on journalists writing and inaccurate stories about aspects related to the elections.” (Seminar Report, 2004)

Organizations, which are media owners sometimes do not support journalist’s safety when they want to cover these types of stories so they end up rejecting that task. .

There was once a situation that was reported by CPJ whereby journalists were prevented to cover a story. About 15 journalists were beaten, threatened, denied access to polling stations or had equipment broken or taken while covering the mayoral and ward councilor vote, according to reports.

Journalists go through the most at times. We often hear about or read of journalists beings caught in the middle of political tension between rival parties during elections. Some escape death and severe injuries while others are known to have been so traumatized by the experience that they have given up their careers altogether.

I do agree that journalists especially those coverings politics and elections should not be card-carrying especially members of any political part because journalists only serve their newspapers, radio or TV stations. Journalists should owe no loyalty to anyone or anything else be it political party or commercial interest.

If a journalist is a card-carrying of any political party, it is easy for him/her to be bribed and be forced to write only good things about that particular party and I know a journalist must not be biased. You need to give people news with both sides of the story; both negative and positive. You need to cover stories in an honest, fair, accurate and your information must be verified. Your job as a journalist is to seek for truth on all parties and favor no one.

If a journalist is card-carrying, he/she will “do the politician a favor but will have limits for. They will always be ready to lend a hand when needed if they feel their coverage might benefit the politician and themselves. The buddy journalist is easily manipulated.” (Adhikari,, 2022)

As I said journalists should not be card-carrying, you must not even wear colors related to any party while on the field reporting elections because you will do be seen as a traitor and an enemy that will betray other parties. That is when you your safety is at risk. You will be assaulted or harmed by politicians of different parties because of that. They believe you will bad mount them to your audience if you are not on their side as they are not trying to market your themselves to get votes from people.

Journalists need to cover stories in the a balanced way with no favors being returned to anyone. There are obstacles a journalist might come across with but there are solutions to everything. There are acts protecting journalists from being victims of politicians. There is no need to fear anyone but you need to be as careful as you possible.