Two newspapers and portal continue to campaign for PCRM, rectification

{Rectification: replaces the sentence “The paper Komsomoliskaya pravda v Moldove covered the campaign rather impartially, but favored slightly the PCRM in the opinion articles” in paragraph 5 with “Komsomolskaya pravda v Moldove in the monitored week published a lot of electoral advertisements and a few news stories and opinion articles, which favored the PLDM and PDM.”} Two newspapers and a portal of the 16 media outlets monitored by the Independent Journalism Center within the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections continue to campaign in favor of the Communists Party (PCRM), mass media expert Petru Macovei said when presenting the fourth monitoring report on the covering of the election campaign by the mass media, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to the expert, the newspapers Moldova Suverana and Nezavisimaya Moldova and the portal www.omg.md intensely promote the PCRM and the idea that all the population of Moldova supports only this election contender. At the same time, they discredit the political opponents of the Communists. Petru Macovei said the number of materials about the election campaign and the space allotted to them has increased considerably during the sixth week of monitoring. There were published 599 articles, up 17.9% compared with the previous week. The papers Timpul de dimineata and Jurnal de Chisinau criticize the PCRM or present it in an unfavorable light, but favor the Liberal parties. The same trends were noticed at Panorama, Evenimentul Zilei, Gazeta de Sud, and Flux. Macovei said the news agency Infotag and the newspaper Cuvantul had a relatively balanced editorial behavior, while the state-owned news agency Moldpres and the portal www.unimedia.md observed the principle of diversity of the sources and opinions. The paper Komsomoliskaya pravda v Moldove covered the campaign rather impartially, but favored slightly the PCRM in the opinion articles. The report says the papers Vesti Gagauzii and Golos Balti practically do not cover the election campaign and provide little information about the November 28 early legislative elections. The 16 media outlets had been monitored during November 1 – 7. The Monitoring of the Mass Media in the Election Campaign Project is implemented by the Association of Independent Press and the Marketing and Polling Institute IMAS-INC.