In the penultimate week of the electoral campaign, some improvements can be seen in the online media coverage compared to previous monitoring periods, shows the latest report of the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections, the Independent Press Association and the Independent Journalism Center.
In particular, some portals that previously favored very clearly certain electoral competitors in the national and single-member constituencies had a more neutral tone during February 9-16 and the bias was not as pronounced as before. However, political preferences remain widespread in news reports. The most frequent offenses are the failure to balance the news, the delivery of unproven allegations as facts, the focus on the candidate’s personal aspects rather than on his or her arguments, and the failure to offer the right of reply to the accused candidates. Even if online journalism must operate fast, experts say integrity standards should not be ignored.
The report also focused on TV coverage besides the online one. Polina Panaite, secretary of the Coalition, said the report showed that a significant part of TV channels favored certain parties, while maligning others. This happens in discord with good practices dictating that TV stations should offer balance access to everybody and promote neutral messages so as to help voters make a conscious choice.
Nadin Gogu, director of the Independent Journalism Center, said the TV materials subject to monitoring included party members as well as independent competitors in single-member constituencies. Among government actors, President Igor Dodon and Prime Minister Pavel Filip where the most frequent subjects of news and broadcasts on the monitored channels. The Democratic Party, the Socialist Party, the Electoral Bloc NOW, the Shor Party and the Liberal Party had the greatest visibility in terms of frequency and duration of appearances in newscasts, programs and debates. Of the candidates running in single-member constituencies, the spotlights were on Vlad Plahotniuc (PDM), Ilan Shor (Short Party), Vlad Batrincea (PSRM), Pavel Filip (PDM), Valeriu Munteanu (NOW) and Călin Vieru (independent).
During the monitoring period, the national broadcaster Moldova 1 had a balanced attitude. The regional public broadcaster in Gagauzia aired in its Russian-language newscasts few materials relevant to the monitoring, without any tendencies of favoring or disfavoring anyone. The private channels Prime TV and Publika TV gave a similar coverage that featured Democratic candidates in mostly favorable tones. Canal 2 and Canal 3 devoted little time to the campaign. The towards the bloc NOW was mostly negative at the four channels, as the attitude towards teh Socialists and Igor Dodon alternated between negative and neutral.
NTV Moldova and Accent TV mainly covered the activities of Socialist representatives President Igor Dodon. The tone was mostly positive. Pro TV and TV8 offered access to news and broadcasts or debates to several political actors. In most cases, the tone was neutral. Jurnal TV mainly covered competitors who organized electoral events, with the attitude being mostly neutral and with some negative bias toward the Democratic Party and the Shor Party. The Central Television devoted much of its attention to the Shor Party, speaking of it in favorable or neutral terms.
Petru Macovei, director of the Independent Press Association, noted that ordinary people’s voices were heard infrequently and selectively in reports.
