Over the course of the last week of the election campaign for general local and new parliamentary elections, the number of television stations that clearly showed a biased attitude towards some candidates increased. These are the conclusions of the fourth media behavior monitoring report in the election campaign, launched by the Independent Journalism Center (CJI), within the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections.
In an IPN press conference, Nadine Gogu, Independent Journalism Center director, said that between October 11 and 19, six out of ten monitored television stations showed partisanship during the last week of the campaign.
Most TV stations based their news on a single source. Their reporting quoted campaign information, without offering any context. In terms of ensuring gender equality, mostly men were quoted as sources. However, unlike other monitoring periods, more women have been cited as sources on some Television stations.
Prime TV and Publika TV have neutrally covered the activity of most electoral competitors, with the exception of the ACUM bloc candidate, Andrei Năstase, who was largely negatively covered.
NTV Moldova and Accent TV have openly promoted the PSRM candidates, especially Ion Ceban, by providing large time broadcasting slots and covering him in a positive context. The worst offender in this regard was Accent TV.
The CJI director said that RTR Moldova offered large time slots for the coverage of the PSRM candidate, Ion Ceban, who was clearly favored both by the frequency and the positive context of the occurrences. On the other hand, his opponents were either covered briefly or ignored. The Central Television, according to Nadine Gogu, continued to cover the Political Party "Șor" in a partisan manner, while disadvantaging the Socialist Ion Ceban.
Nadine Gogu said that only Moldova 1, Jurnal TV, ProTV and TV8 correctly and equitably covered the electoral campaign, respecting professional and deontological standards. At the same time, they have neutrally reflected the activities of most electoral competitors, ensuring a relative pluralism of opinions, without favoring to any extent any electoral contestant.
"The first report showed good news. It showed that most broadcasters were neutral and impartial, but as the electoral battle intensified, it was possible to observe tendencies to present information in a biased way", said Polina Panainte, Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections secretary.
The report was issued by the Independent Journalism Center with the support of the East-European Foundation, US Agency for International Development and the United Kingdom Agency for Development, with resources provided by Sweden.
