APEL points to improved quality of news programs during election campaign

“Compared with the elections of 2009, the quality of the news programs has improved significantly, but there is yet room for better, especially in such a specific period as the election campaign,” the executive director of the Electronic Press Association (APEL) Ion Bunduchi stated for Info-Prim Neo. The expert considers the better quality of the news programs depends greatly on the monitoring of the broadcasters by civil society. A broadcaster that respects itself adjusts its editorial policy deepening on the results of the monitoring, said Ion Bunduchi. The publication of these results should make the broadcasters improve the news bulletins. Those who commit illegalities should be held accountable. “After the September 5 referendum, the Broadcasting Coordination Council established that a channel broke the law and penalized it. Now this channel says it is targeted by the power. It is true that in our country a channel can be liquidated by political order. But it wasn’t a political order and this channel was not closed,” Ion Bunduchi said. The chairman of the Broadcasting Coordination Council Gheorghe Gorincioi told Info-Prim Neo’s reporter that the Council can improve the quality of the newscasts by monitoring. If a broadcaster flouts the law, it is warned, then fined and banned from broadcasting publicity for a period. It can be even closed for a period and then deprived of license. The broadcasters are monitored how they ensure the pluralism of opinion and sociopolitical balance in news programs during the election campaign.