The Press Council chose the finalists of the contest for the National Journalistic Ethics and Professional Deontology Award 2018. In its November 23 meeting, the Council decided that four of the 16 nominated media outlets will compete in the final. These are: the portals Mold-street.md and Newsmaker.md, the weekly “CП” of Balti and TVR Moldova channel, IPN reports.

The finalists were selected by a voting procedure that consisted of a number of voting stages involving the public, experts and members of the Press Council. During September 24 – November 15, 2018, the media consumers could vote on www.mediaforum.md for the 16 media outlets that were nominated for the National Journalistic Ethics and Professional Deontology Award 2018. Later, the professional behavior of the contending media outlets was assessed by a group of experts and by members of the Press Council.

By adding up the points given by the public, on the one hand, and the experts and members of the Press Council, on the other hand, there were selected four media outlets with the highest score. The winner will be decided in a special meeting that will be held behind closed doors.

As the organizer, the Press Council can decide not to give the Award to any of the candidates if it considers the contending media outlets do not deserve this.

The winner will be announced in the “Journalists of 2018” Gala that is staged by the Independent Journalism Center and the Committee for the Freedom of the Press on December 6 this year.

The National Journalistic Ethics and Professional Deontology Award was instituted by the Press Council in 2015 to promote high-quality journalism and good journalistic practices. The previous years the winners were the Radio Free Europe’s Moldovan Service (2015), the portal Anticoruptie.md (2016) and the investigations weekly Ziarul de Gardă (2017).