Media coverage of election campaign was impartial, with some exceptions

Most media organizations, except for a TV channel and two newspapers, have covered the electoral campaign impartially and correctly, offering the public equidistant and pluralist information. The conclusion was included in the final monitoring report by the Independent Journalism Center, as an effort within the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to the report, which was presented at a press conference on Wednesday, June 22, the TV channel with national coverage NIT has openly promoted PCRM, serving as a propaganda tool for this party. Nadine Gogu, IJC director, said that the amount and the content of news proved NIT’s political partisanship. The IJC recommended the Broadcasting Coordination Council to take action against NIT's brazen editorial policy and apply sanctions proportional to the frequency and severity of infringements, so as to put an end to the defiance of the broadcasting regulation authority. According to the IJC report, N4 favored PLDM to some extent, through the high number of news polishing the party leader and Prime Minister Vlad Filat’s image. Similarly, Prime TV favored PDM and its candidates. Euro TV and Jurnal TV had a balanced policy, but showing a slight tendency of supporting the PL candidate for Mayor of Chisinau. Among the five monitored newspapers, Adevarul rose as a model of how to cover an election campaign, as it didn’t lean towards any of the candidates. Mass media expert Petru Macovei said that Timpul de dimineata newspaper favored the Liberal Party and disadvantaged PCRM, but without seriously infringing ethical and professional principles. At the same time, Moldova Suverana and Nezavisemaia Moldova have barefacedly supported the PCRM candidate and denigrated his Liberal opponent. Petru Macovei explained that both publications failed to respect criteria like impartiality, multiple sources, pluralism of opinions, while many materials included faked images, which is against deontological norms. The report recommends media institutions to inform voters impartially and equidistantly, to give up unnecessary comments and value judgments in news, to report events truthfully, without changing the original meaning with adjustments and commentaries. The report was developed between April 18 and June 19, within the project “Monitoring mass media during the election campaign”, with financial support from the East European Foundation, the Swedish Agency for International Development and Cooperation and Denmark’s Foreign Ministry.