In the current election campaign, the biased character of a number of information portals that in the previous campaign didn’t have a more or less balanced behavior became more accentuated. These act as the advocates or mouthpieces of parties or election runners. In many cases, the portals have the same shadow owners and this shows that a tendency of concentration of some of the media outlets in the hands of politicians appears on the media market in Moldova, especially the online one, Petru Macovei, executive director of the Association of Independent Press (API), said when presenting a monitoring report that covered 12 portals.
In a news conference at IPN, Petru Macovei said the portals Actualitati.md, Aif.md and Kp.md have a similar editorial policy. They interpreted in an almost identical, biased way the actions, statements and comments of the same politicians. The portals openly favor and intensively promote independent candidate who is supported by the Party of Socialists Igor Dodon. His opponents were disadvantaged and discredited. The portals Noi.md, Sputnik.md and Vedomosti.md also favored Igor Dodon by the tone and frequency of appearances in a positive context. The PAS candidate Maia Sandu was evidently disadvantaged.
The report says the Central Election Commission ranks fifth by its appearance as a protagonist in the articles published by the 12 monitored portals. In this regard, Petru Macovei said there is a hidden agenda as some of the portals are not interested in covering the electoral process, but rather aim to promote particular competitors and to discredit their opponents. This shows that the media outlets, instead of serving the interests of the public, have a different agenda.
The monitoring showed some of the portals published promotional articles that weren’t marked as such. On Unimedia.info, the Shor Party’s candidate Violeta Ivanov was presented in a positive light in articles of an evident advertising character that weren’t’ marked appropriately. These articles were masked as news items in the sections Political and Social. Realitatea.md also published promotional articles with Violeta Ivanov that weren’t marked appropriately.
“It is well known that one of the political parties of Moldova, the Shor Party, invests a lot in the press in Moldova for promotional purposes, including in TV channels and portals. And there is indeed a problem. I remind that we have the advertising law that says the advertisements should be marked. Regrettably, this is not done every time,” noted Petru Macovei.
The report was compiled by the API within the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections with financial support from the National Endowment for Democracy.
