Even if the election campaign prior to the parliamentary elections began on January 24, two weeks before this most of the media outlets started already to distribute electoral materials that included mainly accusations made by some of the politicians against others, shows the first mass media monitoring report for January 9-24 compiled by the Independent Journalism Center and the Association of Independent Press.
Independent Journalism Center director Nadine Gogu, in a news conference at IPN, said they monitored 12 TV channels. The regional TV channel of Gagauzia GRT had a passive behavior. This broadcast few electoral materials and there was seen no tendency to favor or disfavor particular political players. Moldova 1 offered broadcast time to a number of electoral competitors and their activities were covered mainly neutrally. At the same time, there was noticed a tendency to positively reflect the Government’s activity and this favored the ruling Democratic Party.
On Prime, Canal 2, Canal 3 and Publika, the leader of the PDM Vlad Plahotniuc and first vice president of the PDM, Prime Minister Pavel Filip appeared most often and they were mainly presented in a positive or neutral light. But the representatives of the bloc ACUM and one of its leaders Andrei Năstase were presented mainly in a negative light and for a very short period of time.
Jurnal TV allocated more airtime for the representatives of the bloc ACUM and Andrei Năstase, their activity being mainly covered in a positive or neutral way. The activities of the representatives of the PDM, including Vlad Plahotniuc, were covered less and mainly in a neutral or negative light. The regional channel Televiziunea Centrală (Central Television) allotted more airtime for the activities of the Shor Party and itsleader Ilan Shor. The tone was primarily positive or neutral. The representatives of ACUM, PSRM and the Presidential Office were mainly mentioned than quoted and most often appeared in a negative context.
NTV Moldova and Accent TV offered more airtime to the activities of the representatives of the PSRM and President Igor Dodon. These appeared mainly in a positive or neural context. On the other hand, the representatives of the bloc ACUM, the PDM and the Shor Party appeared mainly in a negative context and for a short period of time. Only the channels TV8 and Pro TV offered balanced airtime to all the electoral competitors, ensuring a balance between the duration of appearances. In most of the cases, the tone was neutral.
Association of Independent Press executive director Petru Macovei said 16 online portals were monitored in the reference period. This way, agora.md, diez.md, esp.md and moldova.org covered the campaign in a generally neutral way. newsmaker.md covered neutrally the activities of most of the competitors, except for the Shor Party, which was presented mainly in a negative context. Unimedia.info, even if it had a relatively balanced electoral behavior, broadcast news items that presented the PDM mainly in a negative light. Zdg.md presented the PSRM, the PDM and the Shor Party mainly in a negative light. deschide.md covered the activities of the Shor Party, the bloc ACUM and the PSRM primarily negatively. Aif.md intensely promoted the PSRM. Noi.md had an evidently negative editorial attitude towards the Shor Party. realitatea.md slightly favored the PDM. Sputnik.md failed to cover a lot of electoral events, but the PDM was presented mainly neutrally and positively. timpul.md presented the PDM and its leader in a positive light and disfavored ACUM.
