APEL announces new monitoring of TV stations and joins Coalition - 2009

The Electronic Press Association from Moldova (APEL) will monitor 10 TV stations to see how they present the political and electoral actors. The monitoring session starts on January 1 , 2009, and ends on November 30, as APEL commits to present monthly reports in this regard. During the electoral period, the reports will be publicized weekly at news conferences. At a news conference hosted by Info-Prim Neo news agency, APEL's executive manager Ion Bunduchi has sated that “nobody likes to be monitored, but given the situation of the Moldovan media, establishing this practice is timely and necessary.” “Especially during the electoral campaign and we know the responses will not be always adequate,” Ion Bunduchi underlined. APEL will monitor EuTV, NIT, N4, Prime, Pro TV, TV7, TVC 21, 2 Plus and the two public broadcasters: Teleradio-Moldova and Teleradio-Gagauzia. The project is funded by the Delegation of the European Commission to Moldova within the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights and will use a budget of over 120,000 euros. “In this case, the European Commission backs such a project in the general context of supporting the democratization of our society. First, the results of the research are necessary to us to see the capacities of the Moldovan TV stations to inform the citizen fully to make conscious and informed choice,” said APEL's executive manager. The project pursues to contribute to create the conditions for insuring a free, fair, , transparent and democratic electoral process in 2009 and to develop professional skills to present the political and electoral actors in an equidistant, impartial, unbiased way in news programs, in social-political programs and in televised debates. The monitors will analyze the behavior of the TV channels to identify and systematize the deviations from the legal and ethical norms, and to publish a guide of good practices in mirroring the elections by media. By this project, APEL states it joins Coalition 2009 – a team of NGOs pursuing to monitor the fairness of the parliamentary elections from different views.