Independent candidate for President Igor Dodon, who is supported by the Party of Socialists, cumulatively has the greatest visibility in the monitored online media, he also being presented mainly in a positive context (434 favorable appearances), shows the second monitoring report that covered 12 information portals in the campaign prior to the presidential elections of 2020. The monitoring period is the first ten days of October. According to the report that was presented in a news conference at IPN, the Our Party’s candidate Renato Usatyi was presented in a favorable light in only three cases.
On the other hand, the Party of Action and Solidarity’s candidate Maia Sandu appeared most often in a negative context that disfavored her (84 times), while the Shor Party’s candidate Violeta Ivanov was presented in a bad light in only five cases. During October 1-10, the 12 information portals published 1,061 articles that directly or indirectly referred to the election campaign. Over 94% of them (1,004 texts) were news items with a different complexity level. As in the previous monitoring periods, Noi.md published the largest number of tests of a political or electoral character (230), while Gagauzinfo.md – the lowest number (10).
API executive director Petru Macovei said all the eight candidates for President appeared in articles as protagonists. “The portals we monitored presented these candidates as protagonists differently by the frequency rate,” he stated.
Igor Dodon was the protagonist who appeared in most of the articles of an electoral character (447 cases). Maia Sandu was presented as a protagonist in 227 cases, the PPPDA’s candidate Andrei Năstase - 164 times, Renato Usatyi – 154 times, Violeta Ivanov – 142 times, the National Unity Party’s candidate Octavian Țîcu - 120 times, the Union Electoral Bloc’s candidate Dorin Chirtoacă - 107 times, the Liberal Democratic Party’s candidate Tudor Deliu – 104 times.
The 12 electronic publications quoted together 1,275 sources, candidate Igor Dodon being at the top this time again, with 201 cases in which he appeared as a candidate. The representatives of the local public authorities, other media sources than those that published the articles and the Government’s representatives were sources in a similar number of cases (133, 132 and, respectively, 126). Members of the Central Election Commission and other electoral functionaries were quoted less, in 93 cases, while experts in 84 cases.
“This way, there were 1,275 sources in the period, but approximately 65% of them were male and only about 11% were female sources. In 24% of the cases, the sex wasn’t specified by the authors of the articles,” stated Petru Macovei.
The report was compiled by the Association of Independent Press (API) within the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections with financial support from the National Endowment for Democracy (the U.S.). The monitored portals are: Actualitati.md, Agora.md, Aif.md, Gagauzinfo.md, Kp.md, Newsmaker.md, Noi.md, Realitatea.md, Sputnik.md, Timpul.md, Unimedia.info, Vedomosti.md.
