As we approach the day of general local elections and snap parliamentary elections, the number of politically partisan television stations that support political parties, favoring or disadvantaging certain electoral competitors, is increasing. These results were presented by Independent Journalism Center (CJI), part of the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections, in the third monitoring report on media behavior in the election campaign.
In an IPN press conference, Nadine Gogu, director of the Independent Journalism Center, said that, between October 5 and 11, most of the electoral topics broadcasted by the ten monitored TV stations were based on a single source of information, did not assure the pluralism of opinion and did not analyze the topics in depth. The absolute majority of the relevant stories were unbalanced from the gender equality perspective.
According to the report, the public television station Moldova 1 did not fully ensure the pluralism of opinion. The institution offered access to almost half of the number of electoral competitors, without clearly favoring or disadvantaging an electoral competitor. Jurnal TV covered the activity of most electoral candidates and ensured a relative pluralism of opinions. At the same time, Andrei Năstase, the ACUM bloc candidate, has benefited from a greater number of appearances at this TV station.
Private broadcasters Prime TV and Publika TV, which have the same editorial policy, neutrally covered the activity of most electoral competitors, with the exception of the ACUM bloc candidate, Andrei Năstase, who was disadvantaged due to the presentation of selective information in a negative context. Additionally, Andrei Năstase was also disadvantaged by the Central Television coverage, an institution that evidently favored the representatives of the Șor Party.
Nadine Gogu added that NTV Moldova and Accent TV continued to mainly promote the PSRM candidates, especially Ion Ceban, favoring him by offering large amounts of time and by covering him in a positive context. RTR Moldova also favored the PSRM candidate Ion Ceban by disproportionally covering his activity.
According to Nadine Gogu, ProTV and TV8 have provided access to the majority of candidates who have been campaigning, without clearly favoring or disadvantaging any electoral competitor.
The report was issued by the Independent Journalism Center with the support of the East-European Foundation, US Agency for International Development and the United Kingdom Agency for Development, with resources provided by Sweden.
