ess often carried out by external personnel, who are not permitted to intervene in the voting and counting operation; and Election Monitoring referring to the information gathering, fact finding and reporting on the credibility, legitimacy and transparency of the electoral process carried out by local agencies or personnel, who are able to draw attention to observed deficiencies during the voting and counting operations. All media houses should adopt their own transparent in-house policy or code on campaign advertisement and sponsorship. Such a policy should ensure that all candidates and parties are treated equitably. Media houses must scrutinize the work and reports of election observers and election monitors, including their identity i.e. the organisations and institutions they are from, their expertise and experience in election observation or election monitoring. They must report the methodologies used by election observers and election monitors and how they arrive at their conclusions. Where media give political parties time slots to air programmes setting out their policies to voters, the content of the programmes will primarily be the responsibility of the party. 5ROHRISXEOLFDQGSULYDWH PHGLDUHJDUGLQJHOHFWLRQ DGYHUWRULDOV Political adverts and advertorials should be clearly distinguished from editorial content. Before and after each party election broadcast there should be a clear statement identifying it as such. However, the broadcaster remains responsible for the broadcast as publisher and should require candidates and political parties to obey laws which may not impinge on freedom of expression, but instead observe standards that pertain to accuracy and fairness. &RQYHUJHGPHGLD State-operated media, and more specifically public service broadcasters, have a particular role to play in ensuring fair, balanced and equitable coverage and allocation of free airtime for party political broadcasts. In this regard they should work closely with independent electoral bodies, media regulatory bodies, media councils and Media Ombudsmen in developing formulas for fair and equitable allocation of air time. With rapidly evolving ICTs, traditional media is expanding into the new and social media sphere and media outlets have a responsibility to extend the application of journalistic principles to these diverse platforms. Specifically, the use of social media in election coverage of conventional media should take into account the following: a) Journalistic standards and ethics still apply. 6R7KLVLV'HPRFUDF\"