Wide-coverage broadcasters get more partisan, media observers

“After two weeks of electoral race, no improvement is noticed, the media become more active, the number of election-related stories is growing, they become more tendentious, more partial,” stated interim manager of the Independent Journalism Center (IJC), Nadine Gogu, on July 8, at a news conference hosted by Info-Prim Neo. “The number of partisan news stories is also growing, and sometimes it is a matter of openly supporting certain parties,” she added, referring to wide-coverage broadcasters. The radio and TV stations with national coverage continued to allow severe deviations from the ethical principles, reads a communique issued by the IJC. A team of observers monitors Moldova 1, Radio Moldova, NIT, Prime TV and EU TV, and has issued a second report regarding the period June 29 – July 5. “In some cases, the afore-mentioned stations breached the Broadcasting Code and the Regulation on covering the elections, adopted by the Central Election Commission,” reads the monitoring report, compiled within the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections – Coalition 2009. An expert in the project, Petru Macovei, the executive manager of the Independent Press Association, has said “the public stations Moldova 1 and Radio Moldova continue to selectively apply the principles of fair, balanced and impartial coverage of the parliamentary elections. Most of their stories on the race present but the perspective of the government and of the PCRM.” Macovei adds “the principle of pluralism of sources is observed only in the PCRM's case and totally ignored in the cases of the opposition parties.” Referring to Prime TV, which announced it would not get involved in covering the electoral campaign, Petru Macovei has said that in fact this station “promotes the PCRM's image, including in directly campaigning news.” “The private station NIT openly supports the PCRM not only by the runtime offered to the PCRM in its reports, but also by the mode of selecting and presenting the news,” Nadine Gogu said. “The station promotes hatred messages and an aggressive language in order to discredit the Liberal parties,” the observer said. “EU TV favors the PPCD and the PCRM both in the stories on electoral events, and in image-building stories about Vladimir Voronin and Iurie Rosca. The station has shortages in terms of impartiality and balance of sources, especially in the news about the Chisinau city hall and mayor Dorin Chirtoaca, who is the deputy president of the Liberal Party”, Gogu stated. The territorial coverage was the key criterion in selected the broadcasters monitored by the IJC.