The situation as regards the covering of the election campaign by the national mass media hasn’t changed over the last few weeks. Inequity and impartiality persist. The election runners are favored or disadvantaged both by the airtime allotted to them and by the contexts in which they appear, shows the fourth media monitoring report produced by the Association of Independent Press (API), the Independent Journalism Center (IJC) and the Association of Electronic Press (APEL) within the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections, IPN reports.
API project coordinator Ion Mazur told a news conference that only 46.2% of the articles published in newspapers were unbiased. The most serious deviations were identified at Nezavisimaya Moldova (18 of 19 were biased), Jurnal de Chisinau (10 of 13), Timpul (11 of 17) and Moldova Suverana (8 of 14). Nezavisimaya Moldova continued to favor massively the PCRM, presenting the PDM, PLDM, PSRM and PPP in a negative light. Jurnal de Chisinau disadvantaged the PDM and, rarer, the PLDM, PPCD and PCRM, and presented the PL in a mainly neutral light. Timpul favored the PDM, disadvantaged the PSRM and PCRM and presented neutrally the PLDM. Panorama disadvantaged the PDM, PLDM and PL. Komsomolskaya Pravda v Moldove favored slightly the PDM and PPP. Ziarul National favored the PLDM and disadvantaged the PSRM, PCRM and PPP, while Vesti Gagauzii favored the PSRM in only one article.
Independent Journalism Center executive director Nadine Gogu said the radio stations broadcast a low number of biased news. However, the general indicator is positive mainly owing to public station Radio Moldova, which aired many and mainly impartial news items. This station, alongside Radio Noroc and Russkoe Radio, didn’t favor the election runners. Instead, Radio Plai favored the PDM, while Vocea Basarabiei – the PLDM.
As to the online media, Nadine Gogu said there were broadcast many conflict-centered articles (20%), two thirds of which presented only one source. The most serious situation as regards the balance of sources was at omg.md, politik.md and moldova.org, while as regards the impartiality of the author – at omg.md, where there were more biased news items than unbiased ones, politik.md, noi.md and jurnal.md. Moldova.org favored the PDM, while deschide.md favored slightly the PDM and PLDM. The two parties were also presented mainly neutrally or in a negative light on noi.md, which favored the PSRM. Moldova24.info disadvantaged considerably the PLDM (84% of the news items in a bad light), while jurnal.md presented the PDM and PPP almost only in a negative light. Omg.md disadvantaged massively the PDM and PLDM and less the PL, favoring the PPP and less the PCRM. Politik.md rather disadvantaged the PDM and PLDM, favoring instead the PPRM.
As to televised news, APEL expert Aneta Gonta said that Prime TV, Publika TV, Canal 2, and Canal 3 continued to favor the PDM. N4 and TV7 favored the PLDM, while Jurnal TV disadvantaged the PDM. Accent TV disadvantaged the PDM and PLDM, favoring the PSRM. Though some of the biased TV channels tempered their editorial policy, the election campaign continues to be covered in an unsatisfactory way.
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).
