The Broadcasting Coordination Council (BCC) should penalize some of the media outlets for covering the election campaign in a biased way and inequitably. This is one of the conclusions of the mass media in the election campaign monitoring report No. 5 produced by the Association of Independent Press (API), the Association of Electronic Press (APEL) and the Independent Journalism Center (CJI) within the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections. The report was presented in a news conference at IPN on November 27.
APEL executive director Vasile State said the TV channels do not make effort to ensure impartiality and the balance of sources. For example, 82% of all the conflict-centered news on N4 were based on one source. This channel, together with TV7, presented the PLDM mainly in a positive context. At the same time, Accent TV presented the PLDM primarily in a negative light. Prime TV, Publika TV, Canal 2, and Canal 3 favored massively the PDM and put the PCRM and PPP mostly in a bad light. Jurnal TV disadvantaged massively the PDM. “In the monitored period, the TV channels returned to practices that we consider harmful, after a relatively calm weak when certain improvements occurred. Things worsened on particular segments. I refer to the observance of the professional norms and to the unbalanced presentation of the election campaign,” stated Vasile State. He noted that Moldova 1 and Pro TV were the most impartial among the monitored TV channels.
IJC director Nadine Gogu said that of the monitored radio stations, Russkoye Radio and Radio Moldova didn’t favor or disadvantage clearly a particular election runner. Radio Plai favored the PDM through a large number of news items, while Vocea Basarabiei favored slightly the PLDM.
API director Petru Macovei expressed his concern about the lack of electoral education materials in the monitored newspapers and about the low and decreasing percentage, compared with the previous report, of unbiased news – in only 44% of the total number of newspapers. Moldova Suverana clearly favored the PLDM and disadvantaged the PSRM and PPP. Timpul favored evidently the PDM and presented the PCRM, PSRM and PPP only in a negative light. Panorama favored openly the PPP and PSRM, disadvantaging simultaneously the PLDM and PDM. Ziarul National presented the PLDM only in positive context, while the PDM in positive and neural contexts. Nezavisimaya Moldova favored massively the PCRM and disadvantaged the PLDM, PDM, PL and, more seldom, the PSRM and PPP. Jurnal de Chisinau favored no election runner, but presented the PDM, PLDM, PL, PPP and PSRM mainly in a negative context, while Komsomolskaya Pravda v Moldove didn’t clearly favor an election runner, though the PCRM, PLDM, PDM, PSRM, PPP and PL had the greatest visibility in this paper, in a neutral context.
As regards online portals, Petru Macovei said jurnal.md and omg.md had more biased than unbiased materials. Jurnal.md favored no contender, but presented the PDM in a negative light and slightly the PCRM, PPP, PSRM and PLDM. Omg.md favored massively the PPP and slightly the PCRM, putting yet the PLDM and PDM in a negative light. Moldova.org, though it had the largest number of unbiased news items, advantaged slightly the PDM. Politik.md favored clearly the PPP and slightly the PSRM and PPRM, but disadvantaged the PDM, PLDM and PLR. Moldova24.info favored openly the PPP and presented the PLDM mainly in a negative context.
“The BCC must apply the law. We, for our part, report the violations and our conclusions coincide mainly with the conclusions of the BCC,” stated the API director.
The monitoring was performed within a project financed by the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy, the U.S. Embassy in Moldova and East-Europe Foundation with the funds allocated by the Government of Sweden through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark (DANIDA).
