Volume of electoral ads in newspapers four times larger in second half of campaign

The volume of advertisements placed by the election contenders in the second half of the campaign for the November 28 early parliamentary elections increased four times. Most of the ads belong to the Democratic Party and the Liberal Democratic Party, shows a monitoring report presented by the Independent Journalism Center on Tuesday, Info-Prim Neo reports. Mass media expert Petru Macovei said the number of voter education materials also rose. “The number of such materials increased, but not to the extent to which we can say that the press fulfills its duty of informing the people about their rights,” Petru Macovei said. According to the expert, it is worrisome that some of the newspapers continue to cover the events through opinion materials, not news. This refers to the paper “Moldova Suverana”, partially “Panorama” and “Timpul de dimineata”. This means that preference is given not to facts, but to opinions about these facts and interpretation of these facts,” said Petru Macovei. The report says “Moldova Suverana” and the news agency “Omega” evidently favor the Communists Party and disfavor the parties of the ruling alliance. Some of the materials contain expressions that denigrate the political opponents of the PCRM. When accusations are made, the opinion of the accused side is not presented. The newspapers “Timpul de dimineata”, “Jurnal de Chisinau”, “Panorama” and the news portal “unimedia.md” present the PCRM mainly in a negative light or criticize it. The ruling alliance is both disfavored and favored. “Timpul de dimineata” and Unimedia favor principally the Liberal Democratic Party,” said Petru Macovei. The report also shows that the news agency “Moldpres” present the parties of the government alliance mainly in a good light, while the paper “Flux” puts all the election contenders in a bad light and favors the Christian-Democratic People’s Party. The report was compiled within the Monitoring of the Mass Media in the Election Campaign Project that is implemented by the Independent Journalism Center in partnership with the Association of Independent Press and the Marketing and Polling Institute IMAS-INC Chisinau. The monitoring covered the period between October 11 and 24.