A final report by the Independent Journalism Center reveals that most of the media outlets covered the campaign prior to the June 14 local general elections in a biased way. The situation in the case of TV channels improved slightly towards the end of the campaign, while the news portals continued to publish news reports without ensuring the balance of sources and equidistance.

In a news conference at IPN, mass media expert Petru Macovei said of the five news portals monitored, omg.md published the largest number of electoral news articles, but these were tendentious and based on several, but not diverse sources. The principle of gender quality was neglected almost fully. The ruling parties were harshly criticized, especially the Democratic Party, while the candidates of Our Party and its leader Renato Usatyi were promoted.

The news portal pan.md ensured the impartiality of news, not yet of its analyses. It also ensured partially pluralism of opinions, but ignored the principle of gender equality. It presented the Democratic Party mainly in a negative light and favored evidently the Party of Socialists and Our Party.

The portal publika.md presented the conflict-centered news articles mainly in a balanced way, quoting all the sides involved. It ensured partially pluralism of opinions and diversity of sources and had the best performance as regards gender equality ensuring. It favored the leaders and candidates of the Democratic Party and presented the Liberal Party and the Party of Socialists mainly in a negative context.

The news portal of the paper “Timpul” - timpul.md – partially ensured objectivity and impartiality as well as pluralism of opinions and diversity of sources in the news. The principle of gender quality wasn’t respected. It slightly favored the Liberal Party and presented the Party of Socialists often in a negative light.

Unimedia.info ensured partially pluralism of opinions and diversity of sources. A large part of its controversial news quoted one side and didn’t offer the right to reply in the same news story. Gender equality wasn’t ensured, the male sources prevailing obviously. The Liberal Democratic Party appeared in its news items most often.

The final monitoring report was produced by the Independent Journalism Center within the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections.