Two of the ten 10 monitored online publications, Actualitati.md and Kp.md, during June 21-30 had a similar editorial behavior. They openly, directly and vastly promoted the electoral contender BeCS and the representatives of the PSRM separately, disfavoring PAS and President Maia Sandu with the same intensity, shows the third report on the monitoring of ten online portals during the electoral period and campaign prior to the July 11 snap parliamentary elections that was carried out by the Association of Independent Press (API) as part of the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections.
In a news conference at IPN, API executive director Petru Macovei said Timpul.md promoted the electoral agenda of AUR, disfavoring and discrediting other contenders, especially PAS and BeCS. This portal continued to pursue a tendentious editorial policy, the electoral events and contenders being presented selectively and with a biased attitude.
Noi.md and Sputnik.md, even if more discreetly, presented BeCS primarily in a favorable light, while PAS in an unfavorable light.
Agora.md and Newsmaker.md had a balanced editorial policy in relation to all the election contenders, without favoring or disfavoring someone. Agora.md had the most impartial attitude to the electoral events and contenders. For its part, Newsmaker.md was the only publication that quoted all the election contenders in the published content.
Gagauzinfo.md paid insufficient attention to the election campaign, publishing a very low number of materials on the issue.
Realitatea.md and Unimedia.info covered a large number of election contenders, but favored or disfavored some of them, including unilateral comments and statements without reply.
In the case of Actualitati.md and Kp.md, the experts recommend taking into account the journalist’s deontological norms, presenting the events in an impartial way, including all those concerned and their opinions about the related happenings, refraining from unilateral, subjective and tendentious propagation of messages that cannot provide a complete picture of the reality and ensuring pluralism of opinions.
Timpul.md is urged to return to the journalist’s deontological norms and to ensure balanced and pluralistic informing of the public about electoral events and to also refrain from aggressively promoting a candidate and to present all the relevant electoral events in an unbiased way.
Gagauzinfo.md should devote increased attention to electoral subjects and present more details about the election campaign and relevant events so that the population can form an opinion about all the election contenders.
Unimedia.info is recommended to ensure increased accuracy in the presentation of facts and opinions about electoral events and proper balance in covering the election competitors. Realitatea.md is advised to attentively choose videos that accompany news items as some of them contain elements that favor of disfavor election contenders and to clearly delimit the journalistic content from advertisements.
