A number of media outlets in Moldova use manipulation techniques. They either inform themselves from one source, use labeling in news stories or extract facts. These techniques are mainly used when covering internal political events and foreign policy subjects referring to conflict situations. These are the findings of the Independent Journalism Center (CJI) that monitored 12 media outlets between November 1, 2015 and January 31, 2016.
CJI director Nadine Gogu, in a news conference at IPN on February 23, said that among the monitored institutions are news portals, online versions of weekly publications and TV channels that have national coverage and produce content in the Romanian and Russian languages. There were also analyzed the news bulletins of some of the TV channels and some of the news of media portals.
Media expert Viorica Zaharia said that among the monitored subjects were national political events such as the visit paid by the Speaker to Brussels, the relations between Chisinau and Tiraspol and the appointment of Ion Sturza as Prime Minister. The experts also monitored the way in which the fielding of Vlad Plahotniuc for the post of Premier and the voting in of the Filip Government were covered and analyzed topical international subjects such as the military intervention by Russia in Syria, the events in Ukraine and the refugee crisis in Europe.
The most frequent deviations from the deontological norms when presenting facts were identified in the programs and articles of Publika TV, RTR, REN TV, Novostipmr.ru, and Sputnik.md. Viorica Zaharia said the denial or hiding of facts is one of the manipulation techniques to which the journalists often resort. This applies mainly to RTR and Sputnik.md. It was established that both of the media outlets reported in detail what Head of Parliament Andrian Candu stated in Brussels and quoted speeches of MEPs, but omitted the questions about the reality in Moldova and about the fact that the MEPs didn’t receive answers to these questions.
According to the expert, omissions were also detected at Prime TV, Publika TV and Canal 3 in their reports about the profile of Vlad Plahotniuc, when this was proposed for the premiership. These channels presented Vlad Plahotniuc as a prosperous businessman and described his hobbies, but said nothing about his businesses and property. The fact that he owned these channels was omitted intentionally.
Viorica Zaharia noted that the labeling is another manipulation method that was used in the monitoring period, mainly by journalists of Jurnal TV, when referring to Vlad Plahotniuc, and of Publika TV and Prime TV. The use of titles and images for presenting protagonists in a bad or positive light is another widely used technique. The experts also identified such deviations from the deontological norms as interpretation and commenting of facts, especially at Sputnik.md and RTR.
The media experts recommend the journalists to respect the norms of the Deontological Norms and to choose subjects depending on the public interest, not the interests of the owners of media trusts and to give up unilaterally presenting facts and commenting on information.
