Public broadcaster praised for behavior in election campaign

The Independent Journalism Center monitored ten broadcasters and 16 newspapers, news agencies and online journals to see how they cover the election campaign for the November 28 parliamentary elections. The monitoring forms part of the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections Project and covered the period between September 28 and October 10, Info-Prim Neo reports. In a news conference on October 19, the Center's director Nadin Gogu said they revealed a number of shortcomings that should be removed in the first part of the election campaign. The Central Election Commission and the Broadcasting Coordination Council must be informed about some of the violations committed by radio and television stations loyal to political organizations. The monitors established that all the broadcasters aired a high number of programs with direct or indirect electoral impact. Most of them covered widely not only the electoral process, but also the political one. Special attention was given to the alleged or real disagreements inside the governing alliance. The public stations Moldova 1 and Radio Moldova abandoned the practice of starting the newscasts with reports that favor the ruling parties. They began to offer more airtime to the PCRM and extraparliamentary parties as well as independent experts. Nadin Gogu said the private channel Prime TV, which has national coverage, covered fairly the electoral subjects, while NIT continues to campaign for the Communists Party. The fourth channel with national coverage, 2 Plus, which started to broadcast news this autumn, provided summary information about the election campaign. This channel as well as N4, which has regional coverage, do not have opinion programs centering on the forthcoming elections. However, N4 widely covered related subjects in its news bulletins. The news channels Publika TV and Jurnal TV presented many of the electoral players in the news and opinion programs and the message was mainly neutral. The radio station Vocea Basarabiei put the PCRM principally in a bad light and favored the ruling alliance, while Prime FM was more impartial, Nadin Gogu added. The report will be submitted to the Central Election Commission and the Broadcasting Coordination Council so that they take the necessary measures. The Independent Journalism Center will present more monitoring reports during the election campaign.