When covering the alleged kidnapping by the mother of a child from Chisinau, the media organizations didn’t fully obey the Deontological Code that obliges the journalists to verify the information before making it public and to ask for the opinion of all the sides involved. The woman who was accused of kidnapping her own child, as her husband whom she is divorcing claimed, complained to the Press Council that the media outlets violated her rights and presented her actions distortedly, IPN reports.
The Press Council members examined the relevant material broadcast by a number of media organizations and reached the conclusion that at the initial stage, when the child’s father published information about the kidnapping on a social networking site, the media outlets considered the information correct and acted in the interests of the child. But, at the second stage, when a number of details emerged, including the fact that the minor was taken from the kindergarten by his mother, not all the journalists and the mass media organizations presented the information honestly, while the conflicting sides were presented in an imbalanced way.
The Press Council also examined the complaint of the Association “Copyright and Related Rights” (AsDAC) over reports broadcast during the program “Paparazzi” on Jurnal TV channel. AsDAC complained that in those reports, the TV channel distorted the purpose of the meeting of the Union of Professional Singers and used montage stratagems to accuse AsDAC of not paying honorariums for people of arts’ copyrights. Also, the Association’s head Anatol Chiriac, who was involved in one of the reports, wasn’t given the right to reply.
The Council members established that there were no major deviations from the journalistic deontological norms in the mentioned reports. It recommended Anatol Chiriac to seek the right to reply as regards the indirect accusations made against him, and urged Jurnal TV to offer the right to reply to him, in accordance with the journalist’s Deontological Code.
