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Direct access to the media in election campaign
A review & recommendations for Zimbabwe
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
November 30, 2001

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Paid advertising, free direct access – or a mixture of the two?
Those who argue in favour of political parties being able to buy advertising during election periods usually do so on grounds of freedom of speech. In the United States, for example, any suggestion of limiting political advertising has been greeted with horror from many quarters. From this point of view, political advertising provides the best possibility for new political parties to challenge the political establishment. Of course, the US experience, where politics is dominated by two established parties with not much ideological difference between them, hardly bears this argument out.

The argument against paid advertising for political purposes actually rests in part upon the same consideration – the opportunity it would give to new political parties. This argument would be that just because you do not have much money, it does not follow that your political ideas are not worth hearing. If you have the capacity to field election candidates, then you should be entitled to put your message across. So the argument goes.

In practice, many countries operate a mixed system. Even many European countries that would not contemplate paid political advertising on the airwaves still allow it in the printed press. Other countries, such as Barbados and Montenegro, allow candidates to "top up" their free allocation of air time with paid advertising. Still other countries, such as Venezuela, operate a different system for publicly and privately-owned media. No paid political advertising is allowed on the former, but it is very extensively run on the private broadcasting networks.

It should be added, that even in relatively unregulated systems of paid advertising, such as the United States, operate a principal of equal access to advertising. Broadcasters must offer to sell equal time to all candidates for federal office. This must be available at the lowest rate charged to non-political advertisers. Equal opportunity means that stations that sell time to one candidate must give the opportunity to others.

MMPZ Recommends

• Zimbabwe should adopt a system of free direct access by parties in election periods, at least for broadcasting. Paid political advertising would not be permitted.
• Failing that, any media that offer advertising time or space to one party or candidate should do so at their lowest non-political rate of advertising and should make similar time or space available to all parties or candidates.

Will the same system apply to the public and private media?
Whatever mixture of paid and free direct access is adopted, most countries that have publicly funded media work on the principle that these media have the obligation to give different political parties and candidates a platform to put across their views. This is because they are owned by the public and therefore may not serve any narrow or sectional interest – nor may they narrowly serve the government or ruling party of the day.

This was the principle enunciated by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, Abid Hussein of India.

If a public asset, such as the publicly funded broadcasting station were used to advance the campaign of one particular political party, this would be as corrupt and improper (and in most countries, including Zimbabwe, illegal) as the use of any other public property such as an office or a vehicle.

It is perfectly possible, therefore, to have different rules governing direct access to the public and private media, since the same considerations do not apply in both cases. In practice, when there are private broadcasters, these have to be licensed by a public authority and are making use of a public asset – the frequency spectrum. Therefore, under most systems, private broadcasters are not given free rein to give direct access to one party and not another. A common system would be to say: there is no obligation on private broadcasters to run direct access broadcasts. But if they do they should make the same opportunity available to all parties on the same terms (whether this is in the form of paid advertising or free direct access programmes).

MMPC Recommends

• If private broadcasters opt to run direct access they should do so under the same system of free programming that applies to ZBC

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