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In Covering Electoral the Campaign, Broadcast Media Deviate from Legislation |
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15.07.09/ The third monitoring report prepared by the Independent Journalism Center as part of the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections - Coalition 2009 found that from 6 to 12 July, the radio and TV stations with national and quasi-national coverage continued to deviate severely from ethical and professional principles, sometimes violating the provisions of the Broadcast Code and of the Regulation on Coverage of the Electoral Campaign, approved by the Central Electoral Commission.
The monitoring report includes the results of a qualitative evaluation of the performance of five radio and TV stations and established the following.
- The public stations Moldova 1 and Radio Moldova continued to selectively apply the principles of fair, balanced and impartial coverage of the parliamentary elections. The principle of presenting a diversity of opinions was observed only in the news that referred to Communist Party of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) and was ignored in most news related to the opposition parties.
- Prime TV, a station with national coverage, broadcast many news items of an electoral nature that promoted the image of the current government and implicitly of PCRM. The other electoral candidates were not presented in this station’s newscasts. Thus, Prime TV deprived the public of information about all electoral candidates and limited citizens’ access to comprehensive information.
- NIT, a station with quasi-national coverage, continued to openly promote PCRM not only through the space offered to news about this party but also through the selection and presentation of news items. Most of the news articles broadcast by NIT were biased, and news referring to the opposition parties was often denigrating. This station used aggressive journalistic language and archive videos in an attempt to discredit the liberal parties.
- EU TV, also with quasi-national coverage, favored the People’s Christian Democratic Party and PCRM both through news coverage of electoral events and through news items accompanied by videos showing Vladimir Voronin and Iurie Roşca. The station was deficient in providing impartial and balanced sources and maintained its tendency to present one-sided information based on one or several sources that expressed the same point of view.
Monitoring is taking place from 22 June to 29 July 2009 with financial support from the National Endowment for Democracy. This project aims at monitoring broadcast media and at informing the public about their performance during the electoral campaign, including the access of electoral candidates to mass media outlets and whether they guarantee a pluralism of opinions. |
