The monitoring of broadcasters during the first week of the election campaign (January 25-31) showed more TV channels covered the activities of election contestants in a neutral way compared with the pre-electoral period. As in the previous report, the media experts monitored 12 TV channels.
Executive director of the Independent Journalism Center Nadine Gogu, in a news conference at IPN, said Moldova 1 covered the start of the election campaign mainly neutrally, except for some cases when it presented the Cabinet in a positive light, favoring the ruling party. Also, the leader of the Democratic Party Vlad Plahotniuc was favored in several news articles. The regional public TV channel Găgăuzia GRT, as in the previous period, didn’t cover the election campaign and broadcast few articles about elections.
The channels with national coverage Prime TV, Canal 2, Canal 3 and Publika TV covered the start of the election campaign in news and debates that most of the times involved representatives of the Government, the Democratic Party or candidates affiliated to this party. The tone was mainly positive or neutral, with the Democratic Party being favored. The representatives of the bloc ACUM and the competitors affiliated to them were presented primarily in a negative light.
NTV Moldova and Accent TV allotted a lot of airtime to representatives of the Party of Socialists. The tone was principally positive and neutral. The Democratic Party, the bloc ACUM and the Shor Party appeared in a neutral or a negative context.
The Central Television favored the representatives of the Shor Party, presenting these mainly in a positive or a neutral way. The other contenders appeared in a neutral or a positive light and sometimes in a negative light.
ProTV, TV 8 and Jurnal TV covered the launch of the election campaign mainly neutrally.
The report also presents the results of the monitoring of 16 online portal. Ion Mazur, head of the advocacy, publications and organizational development department of the Association of Independent Press, said agora.md, esp.md, moldova.org, newsmaker.md, zdg.md and unimedia.info covered the activities of election runners in a balanced way, without showing visible editorial preferences. Jurnal de Chisinau presented the activities of the Party of Socialists, the Shor Party, the Democratic Party and its leader Vlad Plahotniuc in a negative way, favoring the bloc ACUM or presenting it in a neutral light.
The portal aif.md broadly covered the activities of the Party of Socialists almost every time in a positive way. Other election contestants were ignored or criticized, mainly the Democratic Party, the Liberal Party, the bloc ACUM and the Shor Party. The conflict news items were biased and subjective and presented only one viewpoint. kp.md favored the Party of Socialists and presented the Democratic Party neutrally and positively. noi.md showed a negative attitude to the Shor Party and its leader Ilan Shor. deschide.md presented the Party of Socialists and the Shor Party mainly in a negative or a neutral light. diez.md favored the Shor Party and Ilan Shor.
The portal gagauzinfo.md presented independent candidate Nicolae Dudoglo in a negative light. Sputnik.md practically didn’t cover the election campaign. realitatea.md presented most of the electoral competitors in a neutral way, but the Democratic Party and Pavel Filip appeared most often in their news items in a positive context. timpul.md also favored the Democratic Party and its leader and presented the bloc ACUM in a negative light.
Secretary of the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections Polina Panainte said the Coalition implements a number of programs, including programs to monitor the mass media in the election campaign. The monitoring is performed in a move to analyze the possibilities of conducting an honest, equal and correct electoral competition and to inform the people in a correct and impartial way so that they could make a conscious choice on the election day.
