Media nongovernmental organizations express their concern about the intensification of political control over the editorial content of the national media outlets and signal the inefficiency of the activity of the Broadcasting Coordination Council (BCC) in ensuring the observance of the principles of sociopolitical balance and pluralism that are mandatory for all the broadcasters in Moldova, including those that retransmit foreign TV channels and radio stations, IPN reports.
In a statement, the signatory NGOs call on the BCC not to behave only like an agent that ascertains facts, but to also take immediate and energetic measures to determine the broadcasters owned by politicians or businessmen close to political parties to respect the provisions of Article 7 of the Broadcasting Code, concerning sociopolitical balance and pluralism.
“The BCC must permanently monitor the audiovisual stations, especially those that were earlier penalized for such violations, and follow if measures were taken to balance the editorial policies and to ensure real pluralism of opinions, imposing the harshest penalties provided by the legislation. Based on the results of the previous monitoring, including during the election campaign, the BCC should ask Moldova’s Parliament to make the penalties harsher so as to ensure the efficiency of punishment,” it is said in the statement.
The signatories demand that the BCC, as the representative and legal guarantor of the public interests in the broadcasting sector, should not allow retransmitting news bulletins and informative-analytical programs of Russian TV channels, which seriously violate the principles of sociopolitical balance, equidistance and objectivity, on Moldova’s territory. These violations were confirmed by the monitoring performed by the Council in 2014 and 2015.
Among the signatory organizations are the Association of Independent Press, the Independent Journalism Center, the Electronic Press Association, the Association of Independent Tele-Journalists, the Center “Acces-info”, the Journalistic Investigations Center and the Union of Journalists of Moldova.
