Moldova 1 got back its public character, APEL expert

The national public broadcaster “Teleradio-Moldova” (TRM) reconfirmed the clear trend towards restoring its public character noticed in the 2010 elections. The conclusions were formulated by experts of the Electronic Press Association (APEL) in a report on the coverage of the election campaign preceding the June 5 local elections, which was presented in a news conference on June 8, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to APEL expert Vlad Turcan, the public TV channel Moldova 1 during May 1 – June 5 broadcast 524 news stories about the elections and runners. 382 of them were simple news, while 142 were conflictual news. “Moldova’s Acting President and leader of the PDM Marian Lupu appeared in the news programs most often – 121 times. The Liberal Party vice president Dorin Chirtoaca, who is running for a new term in office as mayor, appeared 97 times,” Vlad Turcan said. He also said that the PLDM was mentioned 248 times in the electoral news on Moldova 1, the PCRM – 174 times, the PDM – 132 times, while the PL – 118 times. The situation as regards the length of the parties’ presence in the news programs on Moldova 1 remained unchanged. The PLDM accumulated 3,165 seconds, the PCRM – 1,909 seconds, the PDM – 1,573 seconds, while the PL – 1,322 seconds. Vlad Turcan stressed that the time allotted for politicians, functionaries and ordinary people in the news bulletins was almost equal. They were divided into categories and every category accounted for about one-third of the time allotted to electoral news. The expert said the informative programs on Moldova 1 often exceeded the time allowed for electoral events, but the channel had a coherent editorial policy, oriented towards satisfying the informational needs of the public. “The public TV channel organized public debates for the candidates for mayor of Chisinau, Balti and Comrat and for the parties involved in the electoral process in the period between May 4 and June 3. It broadcast 15 electoral debate programs with a total length of 817 minutes, which were attended by 35 politicians,” said Vlad Turcan. The monitoring was performed by APEL within May 1 – June 5 with financial support from Soros Foundation Moldova within the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections.