TV manipulation techniques deconstructed in case study

https://www.ipn.md/index.php/en/tv-manipulation-techniques-deconstructed-in-case-study-7978_1026017.html

The untruths in a feature about Moldova broadcast by Pervyi Kanal were listed and explained in a case study within a project implemented by IPN, whose goal is to penalize politicians and opinion shapers when these lie and manipulate.

The analyzed feature from Pervyi Kanal, which is the most popular TV channel in the country, covers the protests mounted in Chisinau in January. “Given the enormous impact on the public and the cynicism by which the journalists of this channel manipulate data and facts, we decided to count the lies in this feature and to show the truth behind them and to explain why Pervyi chose precisely those lies and not others,” say the authors of the article.

The authors identified 13 inaccuracies, by minutes and seconds, in the feature. These include exaggerations or ‘gratuitous lies’, whose goal is to ‘increase the dramatic effect’, quoting of ‘imaginary sources’, and manipulative statemements by interviewed persons

Here are some of the inaccuracies detected in the Pervyi report:

Pervyi	sic!
0:45: “...according to some documents signed several years ago, the Romanian armies will be introduced into Moldova in case of disorder...”	False. The manipulation derives even from the way in which the assertion is formulated, without direct reference – “some documents, several years ago”. What document? When was it signed? Two former ministers of defense of Moldova already denied the existence of such documents. The given lie is a scarecrow for the citizens of Moldova...
1:38: “The people protest near the Government Building, where there were placed several police cordons...”	…and the camera shows only one police cordon.
5:05: “...the political crisis in this country reached such a limit that even the rating of President Nicolae Timofti fell to the level of statistic error, of about 1%”	Inexact. As if the head of state once had a high popular approval rating and now, as a result of the political crisis, it reached the limit of sampling error... The motivation of the lie comes from the psychology of the Russian internal consumer. Russia is a presidential republic with the President elected by the people. The President’s rating in such a situation is an indicator of the legitimacy of the exercise of power...
5:53: „...as the participants in the meeting said, the Association Agreement with the European Union, ratified last year, only worsened the economic situation in the country. Europe does not need the Moldovan traditional exports...”	False. One year after the liberalization of trade with the EU, exports of agrifood products to the EU rose by 10.8%, offsetting partially the decline in exports to other destinations, especially Russia, where the decrease was of about 73%.
6:15: vox Iuri Vitneanski „...this year most of the farmers, 90% of them, didn’t even gather the harvest. The vegetables and fruit simply decayed. The apples fell rotten on the ground...”	False. It is the repeat of older manipulation used also by Pervyi Kanal, in September 2015, which was easily identified by journalists. The images show farmers shaking apple trees to ‘save the trees’ because they do not have what to do with the apples. Afterward, the apples from the orchard where the ‘drama’ was filmed were picked up and exported.

The full article can be read on the project’s website sic.md.

Launched at the beginning of March, sic! is a project of IPN News Agency implemented with the financial support of Soros Foundation Moldova. The goal of sic! is to identify lies, inaccuracies and manipulation in public statements with an impact and to inform the people about them in a simple and accessible way. Ideally, the project’s effort will encourage the people to choose credible sources of news, while the opinion shapers to refrain from manipulation.