THE Sampadak Parishad (Editors’ Council) has urged the Election Commission to ensure free movement of media vehicles across the country from the day before the polls to the day after. A letter to Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda was handed over in this regard on Thursday.
Take the necessary measures to ensure that journalists and media persons can move freely with their vehicles; read the letter sent by the Council. It also urged the law enforcement agencies to help reporters and others working for the media and their vehicles move freely. An EC guideline for journalists issued on December 21 had mentioned that no Election Commission sticker would be given for motorcycles. However, the decision was cancelled later.
The fact is that any sort of restriction on journalists’ movement will substantially hamper the ability of newsmen to effectively cover all the polling stations that they could otherwise have covered. EC has issued some guidelines about sending the news from the spot, especially live coverage by electronic media. EC also barred access of the journalists to voting booth and cover news from there. No doubt, some of the decisions are good. But EC should keep in mind that allowing criminals or other troublemakers’ free movement is not the same as allowing journalists’ free movement. There must be some other viable mechanism to ensure that genuine journalists can move about and yet restrict the ability of troublemakers to do mischief.
We do believe that news media play an important role in democracy, particularly in terms of informing the public, yet somebody thinks the media are not fulfilling that role well. Imposing restricting on the journalists to carry out their duties will only prove that the elections are not covered freely and therefore it would be difficult to present to the world that the elections were held in a free and fair manner. The role of news media in a democratic election is extremely important. At the same time, an impartial role of media is also highly expected.
Take the necessary measures to ensure that journalists and media persons can move freely with their vehicles; read the letter sent by the Council. It also urged the law enforcement agencies to help reporters and others working for the media and their vehicles move freely. An EC guideline for journalists issued on December 21 had mentioned that no Election Commission sticker would be given for motorcycles. However, the decision was cancelled later.
The fact is that any sort of restriction on journalists’ movement will substantially hamper the ability of newsmen to effectively cover all the polling stations that they could otherwise have covered. EC has issued some guidelines about sending the news from the spot, especially live coverage by electronic media. EC also barred access of the journalists to voting booth and cover news from there. No doubt, some of the decisions are good. But EC should keep in mind that allowing criminals or other troublemakers’ free movement is not the same as allowing journalists’ free movement. There must be some other viable mechanism to ensure that genuine journalists can move about and yet restrict the ability of troublemakers to do mischief.
We do believe that news media play an important role in democracy, particularly in terms of informing the public, yet somebody thinks the media are not fulfilling that role well. Imposing restricting on the journalists to carry out their duties will only prove that the elections are not covered freely and therefore it would be difficult to present to the world that the elections were held in a free and fair manner. The role of news media in a democratic election is extremely important. At the same time, an impartial role of media is also highly expected.
