Media NGOs Are Asking the BCC to Take Immediate and Active Measures to Clean The Media Space

Non-governmental organization working in the field of mass media are concerned with the intensification of political control over the editorial content of local media outlets and are communicating about the inefficiency of the Broadcasting Coordinating Council (BCC) in ensuring compliance with the principle of socio-political balance and pluralism, which is mandatory for all broadcasters in Moldova, including those who rebroadcast foreign televisions and radios.

We are asking the BCC to act not just as a detector, but to take immediate and active action in order to make the broadcasters whose owners are politicians or business people close to political parties abide by the provisions of article 7 of the Broadcasting Code (“Socio-political balance and pluralism”). The BCC should permanently monitor broadcasters, especially the ones that were previously penalized for such violations, and to see if measures were taken to ensure balance of editorial policies and true pluralism of opinion, applying the harshest penalties stipulated by the current legislation. Based on previous monitoring results, including those from the electoral period, the BCC should ask the Moldovan parliament to provide for harsher penalties, which would make the application of penalties more efficient.

At the same time, signatories are asking the BCC, as a legal representative and guarantor of public interest in broadcasting, not to allow rebroadcasting in Moldova of Russian newscasts and information and analysis programs that seriously violate the principle of socio-political balance, neutrality and objectivity provided by the Moldovan legislation, violations confirmed by BCC monitoring conducted in 2014 and 2015. Despite the penalties applied by BCC decisions, violations continue, and the demand to take measures for liquidation of these violations has not been complied with by the broadcasters who retransmit those channels.
 
Association of Independent Press
Independent Journalism Center
Association of Electronic Press
Association of Independent TV Journalists
“Acces-info” Center
Center of Journalistic Investigations
Moldovan Union of Journalists