The Press Council announced the start of the second stage of the competition for the 2020 National Prize for Journalistic Ethics and Deontology. 11 newsrooms and nine journalists were admitted to the competition. The award is offered with the support of the Soros Foundation Moldova Media Program.

According to a Press Council communiqué, competition regulations stipulate that the public will evaluate candidates through an online platform, by October 31. Thus, platform visitors can award at most 10 points per week to maximum four candidate media institutions from a single social network account.

Additionally, Press Council and Expert Group members will evaluate the candidates. They will award each candidate up to 10 points, depending on the journalism quality assessment and compliance with journalistic deontological norms.

The final score of the candidates will be made up by the public score, with a 25% share of the final mark, and the expert score, with a 75% share of the final score. The Press Council members will take the concluding decision. Subsequently, the Award will be handed out at the 2020 Media Forum, which will take place at the end of November 2020.

As an organizer, the Press Council reserves the right not to award the Prize to any candidate if it considers that the nominated media institutions and journalists do not deserve it.

Moldovan newsrooms were able to nominate themselves for this award as media institutions. Also, they were able to nominate the candidacies of editorial staff members, before September 15. Media consumers, institutions, organizations, companies, public associations and an expert group, constituted by the Press Council, also had the right to put forward candidacies.

The public can vote for their favorite candidates on the website: www.MediaForum.md or on the direct link: https://mediaforum.md/ro/lista_candidatilor

The National Prize for Journalistic Ethics and Deontology was established by the Press Council of the Republic of Moldova in 2015, in order to promote ethical journalism and to recognize the merits of media professionals in this field. The winner is established annually, as a result of a competition, where members of the public, experts and Press Council members act as judges.

In previous years, winners of the National Prize for Journalistic Ethics and Deontology were Chișinău Office of Radio Free Europe (2015), Anticoruptie.md portal (2016), weekly newspaper Ziarul de Gardă (2017), weekly newspaper SP from Bălți (2018) and the TV8 television station (2019). Starting with the 2020 edition, in addition to news rooms, individual journalists can also participate in the contest.