The Press coverage of the 2008 presidential election campaign in Cyprus

Abstract

This article examines the tension created by the existence of differentiated interpretations of the freedom of the press as an institutional right and considers the regulatory potential or the constraint of self-regulation to address the implications of this tension. Qualitative content analysis of press reporting of the 2008 presidential election campaign in Cyprus and document analysis of the Cyprus Journalists’ Code of Practice and of a Guidance Note issued by the self-regulatory agency are used to analyse the data. This article demonstrates that the most fundamental challenge the press self-regulation should address is the complexity in evaluating among different but equally important liberal rights, whose conjunction creates conflict. The findings demonstrate that defining the boundaries of press freedom in order to safeguard balanced and non-discriminatory reporting is a complex process. Emphasising the public’s right to information may jeopardize the journalistic autonomy and the editorial independence as there is no straightforward way to make judgments about incommensurable values such as free speech. This article exemplifies that political reporting is a challenging context as far as the regulability of press freedom is concerned.