Elections 2021 | News report or electoral propaganda: CAEAL clarifies distinction in media seminar

The Electoral Affairs Commission for the Legislative Assembly Election (CAEAL) hopes that this year’s elections can run smoothly and without any hassle, regarding media reports that may be considered as electoral propaganda.
To avoid such problems and clarify any questions and doubts from media outlet representatives, the CAEAL organized a seminar to debate on what constitutes a breach of the electoral law provisions regarding electoral propaganda, providing to the media some insights on how the media can protect itself from unwanted consequences.
At the start of the seminar, which took place behind closed doors, the president of the CAEAL, Tong Hio Fong, explained that the major concern regarding media reports on the topic of the elections is related to the separation between what is considered a news report or a feature from what is considered electoral propaganda, noting that the CAEAL is only concerned with the latter.
“According to Article 75A, it is clearly defined that electoral propaganda is any activity carried out, by any means, to disseminate a message that cumulatively meets the requirements of 1) Direct the public’s attention to one or more candidates; 2) Suggests, expressly or implicitly, that voters vote or stop voting for a given candidate or candidates.
With this undoubted definition and the professionalism of the media outlets, the CAEAL believes that the media can distinguish the difference between a news report and electoral propaganda,” Tong said. He noted that the CAEAL “respects rigorously the press freedom that is protected by the Macau Basic Law, as well as the electoral law.”
On this topic, Tong also highlighted that the media plays an important role, being “essential to elevating the culture of the impartiality, equity, integrity, and justice of the elections.”
The president of CAEAL appealed to the role and duties of the media, as stated in Article 76 of the election law, saying, “the media outlets will disclose their information with impartiality and they exercise their duties with professionalism, objectivity, and impartiality so the elections will take place in an environment of equity, integrity, and justice.”
Tong also remarked that interviews and other media reports are part of the work of the media and are “unavoidable” but, while doing an interview, the media need to pay special attention to the fact that some candidates or people have an interest in a certain candidates list, adding, “These people can be interviewed, as long as the content of the interview, reflects only on the opinion on the questions asked by the interviewer and there is no intention (expressly or implicitly) of elevating the image of this person to achieve votes for this person or to a certain candidates list,” adding, “In this way, there will be no problem.”
As a special note, the CAEAL president also reaffirmed that it is a duty of the media outlets to control and to delete comments or messages, namely on their digital platforms, which could be considered as electoral propaganda, by calling on a vote for a certain candidate or, on the contrary, an attempt to call for a vote ban on a candidate.