Even if the election campaign prior to the parliamentary elections started on January 24, a part of the TV channels monitored by the Independent Journalism Center started to favor particular electoral competitors and to disfavor others by the allotted airtime and by the way in which these were presented two weeks before this date, media expert Nadine Gogu stated, referring to the first mass media monitoring report that covered the period between January 9 and 24, IPN reports.
Nadine Gogu said a part of the monitored TV channels offered access to all the electoral contenders, either parties that run in the national constituency or candidates who compete in single-member constituencies. However, a number of channels, in particular those with national coverage, treated some of the competitors in a preferential way. These benefitted from considerable airtime to state their position on different issues and were presented in a favorable light. Their political opponents were disfavored, especially by filtering out the information presented in news articles.
According to the expert, most of the times the TV channels in news items presented the accusations made by some of the electoral contenders against others, without offering the right to reply to those that were accused. In many cases, the reporters didn’t separate the facts from opinion, resorting to the so-called framing, when the information from events is selected and only a particular facet of things that suits particulate electoral protagonists is presented.
Nadine Gogu noted such tendencies were visible outside the election campaign as well, but they become more visible in election campaigns. “This happens because the journalists follow the instructions of their chiefs who, for their part, obey their patrons who are either politicians or have strong ties with politics,” she stated.
The expert said the journalists are obliged to cover the election campaign in a balanced way and to offer airtime to all the electoral competitors or to the largest number possible. The journalists should also strictly obey the legal provisions, in particular the regulations on the covering of elections worked out by the Central Election Commission and the Journalists’ Deontological Code. The competitors’ right to have access to the media and the public’s right to receive correct and balanced information will be respected only this way.
