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"HANDBOOK FOR RUSSIAN MEDIA COVERAGE OF CAMPAIGNS"

Published by the European Institute for the Media

Editors: Andrew Palmer and Yasha Lange

Available in English, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarussian, Moldovan.

Available for FREE to media professionals and scholars from Central and Eastern Europe.

Cost for others: 20 DM

Please send your address and language preference by e-mail to Yasha Lange, 100443.1703@compuserve.com, fax: +49 211 9010 456, tel: +49 211 9010 478 .

During the European Institute for the Media's recent mediamonitoring missions to Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Hungary and Belarus, it became clear that there was scope and need for Western assistance to the Central and Eastern European mass media. The Institute repeatedly found that broadcasters, publishers and government officials required and requested Western expertise in the general process of reorganizing media.

One of the most important areas in which this assistance can be given is in media coverage of election campaigns, during which general principles of media fairness and independence are placed under the closest scrutiny and put to their most important test.

The Institute has found that flaws in election coverage in developing European democracies stem as much from inexperience and structural inadequacies as from deliberate policy-making. It is not the intention of this handbook, entitled Media and Elections, to lay down the law on how electoral coverage is to be regulated and covered, but the recommendations it contains are rooted in actual experience of Central and Eastern Europe, and could be a useful and necessary source of assistance and information to the people who determine the nature of that coverage.

The Handbook Media and Elections

The main body of the handbook has two sections. The first section takes the form of a comparative analysis of regulations and established practices governing media coverage of election campaigns. This analysis covers 4 selected Western countries - 3 from Western Europe and 1 from North America (Great Britain, Italy, Germany and the United States) - and 2 selected Eastern European countries (Russia and Poland), and includes especially relevant and noteworthy features of election coverage in other nations.

The analysis embraces television, radio and press, and examines the modus operandi in each of the selected countries with regard to the following major areas of concern:

1. the regulations governing access of parties and candidates to "free" broadcasting time, and the financing and use of that time

2. the regulations governing access of parties and candidates to "paid" media time/space, and the presentation and use of that time/space

3. the regulations governing fair representation of political parties and candidates in editorial programming for public and commercial broadcasters

4. established standards of journalistic practice.

The analysis then assesses the utility, effectiveness, and desirability of particular regulations, institutions and codes during previous campaigns in the respective countries.

The second section of the handbook draws on the facts and findings of the first section to present a series of recommendations on how media coverage of election campaigns could be organized.

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