The number of news items that favored or disfavored candidates for President last week declined, but some of the media outlets continued to treat the aspirants for the office of President inequitably. The gender imbalance in news items and programs became more accentuated, says the fourth mass media conduct monitoring report compiled by the Association of Independent Press (API) and the Independent Journalism Center (CJI).

In a news conference at IPN, CJI executive director Nadine Gogu said the joint candidate Maia Sandu and the PDM’s candidate Marian Lupu appeared most often in the programs of the 12 monitored TV channels. The leader of the PDM also enjoyed the largest part of the airtime allotted for live broadcasts. By the frequency and length of appearances in a positive context, Marian Lupu was followed, at a big distance, by Igor Dodon and Maia Sandu. The candidate of “Our Party” Dumitru Chubashenko was the most disfavored one.

“The public TV channel covered the events in a balanced way, unlike two weeks ago, when the situation was different. At the other channels with national coverage, Prime TV, Canal 2, Canal 3, and Publika TV, the number of appearances of the Democratic candidate Marian Lupu and of materials that favored him decreased, but this anyway remained the most favored candidate,” stated Nadine Gogu.

She also said that seven TV channels, Prime TV, Canal 2, Canal 3, Publika TV, Jurnal TV, NTV Moldova, and Accent TV, didn’t respect the regulations concerning the covering of the election campaign and deviated from the Election Code.

API executive director Petru Macovei said that even if many outlets had critical reactions after the monitoring results were presented, some of the monitored portals changed their editorial policy and presented the election runners in a more balanced way. “In general, many media outlets covered the election campaign selectively. Some of the candidates are favored, while others are disfavored. Not many outlets try to cover the campaign in all its aspects,” he stated.

On the monitored online portals, Maia Sandu appeared most often in a positive light, as did Andrei Nastase, even if he withdrew from the electoral race. Marian Lupu was presented more in a negative than positive context, as were Igor Dodon, Iurie Leanca and Mihai Ghimpu.

The report shows that a lot of materials, especially those about accusations made against candidates, were unbalanced because they didn’t respect the principle of plurality of sources and didn’t offer the right to reply to those involved.

The four monitored newspapers favored mainly Mihai Ghimpu, Marian Lupu, and Igor Dodon. The other candidates were presented both in a negative and in a positive light. The principle of plurality of sources wasn’t respected, while the news articles about conflicts were biased.

The monitoring by the CJI and API is carried out within a project financed by the National Endowment for Democracy of the U.S. and the Council of Europe.