Journalists, experts analyze Moldovan broadcasters' behavior

The Electronic Press Association from Moldova (APEL) holds a conference on Tuesday and Wednesday (June 2-3) at which journalists and experts analyze the behavior of the Moldovan broadcasters before, during and after the April 5 elections, Info-Prim Neo reports. APEL organizes the conference in its project “Monitoring the political/electoral actors' presence on the main TV channels during the pre-election, election and post-election period of the 2009 parliamentary elections,” backed by the Delegation of the European Commission to Moldova and implemented during the election period under the aegis of the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections – Coalition 2009. The electoral debates on TV was a topic hotly discussed at the event. Speakers were trying to decide on some criteria to select the participants in the debates. Two independent candidates in the recent parliamentary poll, Stefan Uratu and Sergiu Banari, backed the idea that the independents should be offered the same amount of airtime on TV as the political parties. TV7's manager Anatol Golea said the televisions making a living on advertising can't afford airing programs decreasing their rating indices, suggesting that the debates with the independents would do namely so. “We had an inflation of debates during the race,” said Our Moldova Alliance MP Victor Osipov. “The concept of holding the debates (adopted by the Broadcasting Regulator - e.n.) was schemed to compromise the idea of debates,” he said. Director of the ADEPT think tank Igor Boţan spoke about the working ways what he called “the media holding”, meaning the grouping of media outlets supporting the Communists Party. “On April 2, the European Commission warned about the partisanship practiced by the media holding,” said Botan, who saw a link between the behavior of the pro-PCRM media and the outbreak of the revolts on April 7. Director of the IDIS Viitorul think tank Igor Munteanu spoke about the work of the public broadcaster “Teleradio-Moldova”. The parliament elected him to be a member of the Supervisory Board of that company. “40% of the wage contributions in this company are paid as assistance,” Munteanu said, hinting that “the assistance” is offered in function of the loyalty to the rulers. “Some employees of this company work on 700 lei a month, others get 10,000 lei,” he said. The results of the monitoring sessions, broadcasters' editorial policies, the presence of electoral competitors on radio and television, insuring the citizens' right to objective information and the behavior of the broadcasting regulators charged with supervising the coverage of the elections by broadcasters triggered different and controversial opinions within society, reads a release by APEL. In order to involve all the sides in analyzing the electoral process, APEL holds the public debates on the experience of mirroring the electoral campaign by the TV stations from Moldova, called “Lessons learnt and to be learnt.”