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Broadcaster with National Coverage Deprive the Audience of Accurate and Fair Electoral Information |
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23.07.09/ The fourth monitoring report prepared by the Independent Journalism Center as part of the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections - Coalition 2009 found that from 13 to 19 July, the radio and TV stations with national coverage and some of the private stations failed to cover the electoral campaign in a fair and balanced manner. Violations of the provisions of the Broadcast Code and of the Regulation on Coverage of the Electoral Campaign, approved by the Central Electoral Commission were repeated.
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 balanced and impartial coverage of the parliamentary elections. The principle of presenting a diversity of opinions was observed only in news that referred to the Communist Party of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) and was ignored in most news related to the other electoral candidates.
- The private station Prime TV indirectly favored PCRM through news of an electoral character that promoted the image of the current government. Through its decision not to get involved in covering the campaign, Prime TV deprived the public of information about all electoral candidates and limited citizens’ access to comprehensive information.
- The private station NIT openly favored PCRM with laudatory news and disfavored other candidates except those from the People’s Christian Democratic Party (PPCD). Most of the news articles broadcast by NIT were partial and unbalanced and those referring to the opposition parties were often derogatory. The station used aggressive journalistic language and sometimes promoted hatred.
- EU TV covered events related directly or indirectly to the electoral campaign and the electoral candidates relatively impartially; however, the large number of news items favoring certain candidates indicates a tendency of partisanship by this station in favor of PCRM and PPCD.
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. |
