Observers find insignificant changes in editorial policies of Moldovan televisions

Monitored televisions, and, first of all, Moldova 1, N4 and NIT, differently covered, as frequency and duration, political actors, thus creating unequal and imbalanced visibility to them. The conclusion is contained in a report on monitoring the coverage of political actors by 9 TV stations. The report has been compiled by the Electronic Press Association (APEL) from June 1 through 16, 2009, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to the report, the monitored televisions generally pursued the same policies in editing news and programs about politicians and state institutions, as during the run-up to April 5 elections. Three stations – Moldova, N4 and NIT – put in a positive context and favored, preponderantly, the representatives of the political power and disfavored parliamentary opposition representatives. “The extra-parliamentary party enjoying most of the coverage was the PPCD,” said university professor Constantin Marin at a news conference. “The PPCD became the favorite of some stations, which had not even talked about it before, or used to mention it but occasionally. The question is about N4, NIT and Moldova 1,” Marin said. Monitoring reports compiled by APEL and other media NGOs are permanently criticized by the administration of the public broadcaster “Teleradio-Moldova”. The coordinator of this project, Vasile State, has said APEL and other NGOs prepare a reply to Teleradio-Moldova's administration, which will soon be made public. Unlike other previous monitoring sessions, the results of the one lasting from June 1 to 16 find that, on most of the televisions, the number of conflict related stories using more info sources exceeds the number of the stories written on the basis of a single sources. Most often, the legal requirements and the professional norms in writing the conflict stories are breached by NIT. On the contrary, Pro TV Chisinau and TV7 proved their devotion to the standards of independent journalism. In the opinion of the experts compiling the reports under APEL's aegis, the insignificant development seen on some stations “must be stepped up with determination, in order to give the viewers the opportunity of being adequately informed, in order to cast their votes in a qualified manner,” reads a communique distributed by the speakers at the news conference, conducted by Nicolae Panfil, the secretary of Coalition 2009. The project “Monitoring the presence of political/electoral actors on the main television channels in the pre-electoral, electoral and post-electoral period for the 2009 parliamentary elections” is financed by the European Commission's Delegation in Moldova under the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, and is conducted in the framework of the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections – Coalition 2009.