Each of the 12 media outlets monitored by the Independent Journalism Center (IJC) since the start of this year until the end of March committed at least one violation of the deontological norms or used at least one manipulation technique when covering five monitored subjects. The number of violations rose in the campaign prior to the February 24 parliamentary elections, shows a monitoring report for January 1 - March 31, 2019.

In a news conference at IPN, IJC director Nadine Gogu said the mingling of facts and opinions was the most often violation committed by all the 12 monitored media outlets. The second most frequent violation was the non-provision of the right to reply to those featured or accused in news articles. There were also used manipulation techniques such as the omission and selective presentation of facts, transfer of negative image, manipulation of the sound and images and the technique “domestic enemy versus national savior”.

The five subjects monitored included the property statements of political leaders, the start of the election campaign prior to the parliamentary elections, preliminary results of the legislative elections, indexation of pensions and offering of social assistance on Easter.

Media researcher Victor Gotișan said the mingling of facts and opinions was identified at Canal 3, Prime TV, TV8, Accent TV, Unimedia.info, Kp.md when these reported on the property statements of political leaders, at Prime TV, Canal 3, PRO TV Chisinau, NTV Moldova, Televiziunea Centrală when these presented the preliminary results of the parliamentary elections, at Canal 3, Televiziunea Centrală, Sputnik.md when the indexation of pensions and the offering of Easter assistance announced by Vlad Plahotniuc were covered, and at Prime TV, Accent TV, Sputnik.md, Kp.md, TV8, Televiziunea Centrală when these covered the first sitting of Parliament.

Among other violations committed by media outlets, the media researcher noted the use of generalizations, fakes, irony and the manipulation through video images or sound. The last technique was evidently used at Canal 3. When this presented the representatives of the Democratic Party, the channel used neutral images of these, while when presenting the Bloc ACUM, it disseminated reports with images in a negative context, such as protests and violent acts.

The experts recommend the Broadcasting Council to monitor the TV channels that commit violations and the media editors to supervise the editorial content. Another recommendation is for the journalist to check the truthfulness and accuracy of the undertake information and to report the relevant facts impartially and by verifying the information, not selectively and unilaterally. The media consumers are recommended to inform themselves form a number of media sources.