Most of the monitored media outlets covered tendentiously the election campaign for the June 14 local elections and didn’t ensure the pluralism of opinions to the necessary extent. A large part of these focused on the promotion of particular election runners or discredited the opponents of the favorite contestants. These are the general conclusions of the final monitoring report compiled by the Independent Journalism Center within the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections.
There were monitored five TV channels and five news portals. The Center’s executive director Nadine Gogu, in a news conference at IPN on June 18, said the behavior of the media outlets oscillated in the monitored period. At the start of the campaign, the behavior was more aggressive, while in the middle most of the media organizations showed bias in favor of particular contestants. Over the last two weeks of the campaign, the situation improved. The largest part of the monitored media outlets didn’t broadcast electoral education materials. There wasn’t ensured a balance based on gender criteria. There were mainly quoted male sources.
Nadine Gogu stated that the public TV channel Moldova 1 had a relatively balanced and unbiased behavior and ensured partially the pluralism of opinions, the diversity and balance of sources. But gender equality wasn’t ensured. Judging by the frequency and context of the appearances of election runners in news items, Moldova 1 ensured the greatest visibility to the Democrat Party (PDM).
The channels with national coverage Prime TV and Canal 2 covered the election campaign tendentiously, failing to ensure the pluralism of opinions and diversity of sources. The channels partially ensured the balance of sources in news centering on conflicts and gender balance, this indicator being the best on them among the monitored channels. By the frequency and context of the appearances of election runners, the two channels favored massively the PDM, which was presented in a positive light in most of the news articles. Most of the feature reports were classed as direct electoral publicity.
The channel with regional coverage TV 7 covered the election campaign in a relative correct and equidistant manner and ensured partially the pluralism of opinions and the diversity and balance of sources. The Liberal Party (PL) and the Democratic Party appeared here most often and in different contexts, with none of the election runners being clearly favored or discredited.
The local channel Accent TV didn’t ensure the impartiality of the news, pluralism of opinions, gender equality and the diversity and balance of sources. It presented the PL mainly in a negative light and favored the Party of Socialists, especially during the last week of the election campaign.
