Martin Huckerby is a former reporter and news editor at The Times, London, and foreign news editor of The Observer. After several years as the editor of The Prague Post, he has worked around the world as a journalism trainer and editorial consultant to newspapers and news agencies. Recent work has included election training for political journalists in TV, radio and print, in Nepal and Sudan.
1. In your opinion, what is the most essential role of journalists during elections?
To hold to account those in power – and those seeking power – scrutinising their claims and looking for factual inaccuracies, but also studying and explaining the underlying aims of the participants.
2. Which aspects in the elections reporting are of key importance for objective and professional informing of citizens in their decision making process?
Examining the claims of the parties – comparing these against their records – and testing the feasibility of the proposed policies.
In authoritarian states, it can be hard to find independent experts (or ones willing to speak out strongly); it may make sense to look across borders, to see whether similar ideas have worked there, and gathering comments from experts in neighbouring countries on how realistic a particular policy may be.
3. To which extent the journalistic reporting may affect the motivation of citizens to take part in the voting process?
Good reporting can enthuse a jaded public – and bring home to them the importance of a crucial election; but the media can also be a turn-off – endless reports of bickering between the different contenders can leave audiences cold. Journalists often become obsessed with the minutiae of politics, and can ignore the broader picture.
Reporting who’s up, who’s down, can be as exciting as commenting on a sports match, but it does not necessarily shed much light on a complex situation.
4. Given your international experience as a consultant and a trainer, which aspects of the media coverage in countries with a low level of democratic development you consider as most problematic ones, in comparison to the developed countries?
It is often a matter of degree rather than something completely different.
There is a fundamental problem in the confusion of roles for journalists. In newspapers, for instance, journalists involved in election coverage might variously act as ‘news reporters’; as ‘political reporters’, providing analysis as well as news; as ‘commentators’ or ‘columnists’, offering their views of events; as ‘editorial/leader writers’, presenting their papers’ policies; and even as ‘propagandists’, who espouse the cause of one party to the exclusion of all others.
Journalists may adopt several of these roles – so on what basis is the reader to judge the reliability of what he or she is told?
State broadcasters face perhaps the greatest challenge – you need to be very tough morally to withstand the demands of the party in power that the TV and radio coverage should favour the government.
But such countries have pluses, too – media in ‘developed’ countries often obsess about the personalities of leaders, focussing on their comments, dress, behaviour and minor gaffes, to the exclusion of coverage of their policies.
5. In your opinion, what are the most common reasons for unprofessional reporting during elections in the countries where you have worked so far?
Many of the problems are common to all types of reporting in such countries – small media outlets, which are frequently ill-equipped and under-financed, with poorly paid and largely untrained staffs, are unsuited to providing accurate, balanced and in-depth coverage.
Too many media houses have owners whose main aim in an election is to secure political influence or financial benefit.
Partisanship on the part of reporters is also an issue – they are, or become, proponents for the people they report. Even those who genuinely seek to be balanced can be carried away as they follow a particular leader on the campaign trail.
6. How should the professional development of journalists and newsrooms proceed in order to provide professional reporting during elections?
Lack of suitable training for journalists is common in politically less developed countries.(Former communist states may have special difficulties because a theoretical journalism education has left many ill-equipped to handle the practicalities of reporting).
A continuing programme of advice and practical training would help them handle the challenges posed by powerful politicians, and enable them to seek out the issues which matter most to voters.
7. Where do you see the role of the self-regulatory bodies, such as the Council of Media Ethics of Macedonia?
Such bodies set ground rules for media coverage – they can remind journalists of how they should behave, and help rein in excesses which inevitably take place during an election.
But probably the most crucial role is securing and monitoring equal time and similar provisions for the different parties on TV and radio. The precise details of agreements can become quite technical, and require careful policing by such independent bodies if they are to deliver the required fairness in coverage.
Overall, such organisations can be a vital element as tensions rise – which is inevitable in close-fought elections. They can offer calm reflection and sensible guidance to the journalists seeking to do their jobs with professionalism.