After monitoring 24 mass media institutions during about two months, the Independent Journalism Center (CIJ) and the Independent Press Association (API) ascertained that the trends witnessed at the start of the election campaign continue to exist. First of all, the media outlets continue to bias in favor of certain election contenders, Info-Prim Neo reports. On April 1, the CIJ and API presented the results of the fifth monitoring report (March 19-25) on how the 24 institutions cover the election campaign, prepared as part of the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections – Coalition 2009. The monitors said that the media outlets can be divided into three groups. A part of them support mainly the ruling party and criticize the Opposition parties, while the others criticize the PCRM and support certain Opposition parties. The institutions forming part of the third category try to be impartial. “Unfortunately, the number of media outlets that bias, mostly in favor of the ruling party, is larger. These are mainly public broadcasting institutions with national coverage,” said Nadine Gogu, the acting director of the CIJ. “The election contenders do not have equal access to mass media, except the electoral debates. The public institutions, with small exceptions, openly bias towards the ruling party in news and opinion programs. There are also problems related to the professional ethics: the authors of the materials often forget about the presumption of innocence, do not offer the right to reply, distort the facts,” Nadine Gogu said. CIJ expert Nicolae Negru said that during the monitoring period practically nothing changed in the way that the broadcasting institutions cover the election campaign. The public stations Moldova 1 and Radio Moldova as well as the private stations NIT and Antena C favor the PCRM. Euro TV favors the PPCD, is neural towards the PCRM, but biases against the opponents of the PPCD in news and opinion programs. The third group – PRO TV, TV7 and Vocea Basarabiei – are more objective and impartial towards the election runners, including the PCRM. The print media continues to cover the election campaign from different positions, said Petru Macovei, the executive director of the API. Thus, the newspapers Moldova Suverana, Nezavisimaya Moldova, the state news agency Moldpres and the portal www.omg.md bias in favor of the PCRM and against the political rivals of the PCRM, sometimes even denigrating them. Jurnal de Chisinau, Timpul de Dimineata, partially Moldavskie Vedomosti and the portal www.unimedia.md criticize the PCRM and support other parties, especially Liberal ones. The other monitored institutions do not evidently favor an election contender. The monitoring report mentions the mistreatment of the editor of the Balti-based Russian weekly “SP” Slava Perunov at an electoral meeting of President Vladimir Voronin held at the Palace of Culture in Balti on March 26. He was banned access to the hall even if he had the journalist’s permit. When he instituted, one of the young persons that stopped him punched him and closed the door. Under the legislation, the journalists have free access to electoral events. The report was compiled as part of the Monitoring Mass Media during the Election Campaign for the 2009 Parliamentary Elections Project, which is financially supported by the Representative Office of Eurasia Foundation in Moldova from the resources of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and the United States Agency for International Development.