TeleRadio-Moldova Company (TRM) offers information filtered to a great extent through the official point of view, which makes it a governmental structure rather than a public one, say the authors of a project that monitored the Company’s newscasts. Victor Pantaru, media expert, told Thursday, May 10, a press conference held at Info-Prim Neo that the news broadcast took place between March 25 and 31 as part of the project “Monitoring of the Audiovisual Code Implementation”, run by 10 NGOs under the aegis of the Electronic Press Association APEL. After monitoring the “Mesager” news programme at Moldova 1 channel and the newscasts aired by Radio Moldova, it has been found that a number of journalists are often loyal to the authorities; the editorial policy of the company doesn't comply with the provisions of the Audiovisual Code and, overall, the Company has infringed the provisions of the legislation in operation. In addition, the authors have established that controversial materials are not broadcasted at all, and the few of those broadcasted present only the authorities’ point of view. Also, the efforts of the Supervisory Board are insignificant in evaluating the broadcasted materials and their quality, while the Broadcasting Coordination Council (BCC) does not take measures to protect the consumers' rights. According to Corina Fusu, project expert, the most worrying fact is that TRM favours the ruling party and the journalists of the company do not respect the basics principles of journalistic ethics. During the conference it was presented the case study of the Balti-based FM 103.5 Radio, whose broadcast licence was not prolonged by the BCC in February, another winner being announced instead – a company founded few weeks before that. Lawyer Fadei Nagacevschi, project expert, said that the decision adopted by the BCC was mainly based on a monitoring report that had evaluated the Balti radio station for only 24 hours, thereby leading to an erroneous opinion on the real activity of the radio. A strange fact is also that BCC gave priority to an unknown company and without any experience in this field, to the detriment of the FM 103.5 Radio, a company with a 10-year experience and with a large audience. By acting so, BBC violated a number of articles of the Audiovisual Code, and its essence in particular, thus allowing this popular radio station in northern Moldova to be brought to silence, the expert said. Another case study refers to the comparative analysis of the pre- and post-privatisation broadcasting schedules of Antena C Radio. The experts found that the reorganisation of the municipal radio station into a private company, due to the inaccurate implementation of the Audiovisual Code, has led to weakening of the staffers’ capacity in covering the events of public interest; to an increased level of official information and decreased level of the pluralism of opinions in news bulletins; significantly reduced number of the programmes targeting the general public; reduced diversity of the broadcasting schedule, etc. “The Monitoring of the Audiovisual Code Implementation” project, financed by the “Soros-Moldova” Foundation, aims at instituting a mechanism of public control over of the way of applying the newly adopted broadcasting legislation in Moldova.
Civil society warns of deviations from Audiovisual Code
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