The media outlets and media consumers have several more days at the disposal for proposing candidates for the Journalistic Ethics and Professional Deontology Award that was instituted by the Press Council in 2015. May 31 is the deadline. The award will be provided after a year-round monitoring that will involve the public and a group of experts, IPN reports.

The Press Council of Moldova said the contest is open to media outlets that will suggest candidates independently or will be proposed by media consumers or a group of experts set up by the Press Council for the purpose. The candidate media outlets will be monitored by the public, the group of experts and the Press Council. Their professional behavior will be assessed in accordance with the Journalist’s Deontological Code of Moldova. The visitors of the online platform www.mediaforum.md will be able to give points to the candidates.

The Press Council will validate the scores of each media outlets and will add or decrease points in accordance with the criteria defined in the contest’s regulations. As the organizer of the contest, the Press Council can decide to offer the award to none of the candidates if it considers that the candidate media outlet does not deserve it.

Press Council head Ludmila Andronic said this contest was staged because the members of the Press Council permanently ascertain cases of violation of the journalistic ethical norms, but the ethical behavior is not publicly encouraged. “We do not have an instrument for publicly promoting such behavior. That’s why we thought that the existence of such an award will be an instrument for monitoring those who voluntarily take part in the contest during the year,” she stated, adding that the award encourages those media institutions that promote journalism of a high quality and good journalistic practices.

The regulations of the contest and the procedure for fielding candidates for the Journalistic Ethics and Professional Deontology Award are available on www.mediaforum.md, accessing the banner from the website (direct link: http://mediaforum.md/ro/premiul_national). More details can be found out from the Press Council’s secretariat, on the phone number 022-220996 or on the addresses www.consiliuldepresa.md, www.mediaforum.md, secretariat(at)consiliuldepresa.md.