The BCC Finds Violations of Electoral Law By Broadcasters and Publicly Warns Several Televisions

The Broadcasting Coordinating Council (BCC) issued on Monday, October 17, a public warning to several broadcasters registered in Moldova for violations of Article 7 paragraphs (2), (3) and (4) letter c) of the Broadcasting Code, which have been noted in the BCC’s first report on monitoring the election campaign.

According to the BCC report, presented at a public meeting, channels Prime TV, Canal 2, Canal 3, Publika TV, Accent TV and NTV Moldova clearly favored certain candidates. They were sanctioned with public warning, by unanimous vote of all 9 BCC members. Jurnal TV was also subject to this sanction, but it asked for an adjournment in order to bring additional information to the report.

Realitatea TV, TV 7, N4, RTR Moldova and Ren Moldova had a relatively balanced behavior, and showed no tendency of evident favoring of candidates, but in some materials on conflict situations they failed to abide by the principle of informing from several sources.

Only Moldova 1 and Pro TV Chisinau televisions covered electoral events during the monitoring period objectively and without bias.

BCC members underlined that the conclusions of the BCC monitoring mostly coincide with the conclusions of media organizations’ reports, especially in the issue of favoring or disfavoring of certain candidates. Thus, Prime TV, Canal 2, Canal 3 and Publika TV favored Marian Lupu, candidate of the Democratic Party, and presented in negative contexts Andrei Nastase, candidate of the Dignity and Truth Platform Party. Jurnal TV favored Andrei Nastase, while Marian Lupu was presented exclusively in negative contexts. Accent TV and NTV Moldova favored Igor Dodon, candidate of the Party of Socialists.

Mariana Onceanu-Hadarca drew the attention of her colleagues in the BCC to the gravity of the situation in the current campaign: “Publika TV, Prime, Canal 2, Canal 3 gave 18, 17, 16 minutes to Marian Lupu, who was mostly presented positively. The same is true for Jurnal TV, with 33 minutes for Andrei Nastase. On Accent TV the candidate with the most airtime was Igor Dodon, with 49 minutes.” BCC Chairman Dinu Ciocan also said: “The situation is quite grave, with massive favoring of some candidates. I don’t believe that things will change before the campaign ends. We need changes to the Broadcasting Code or a new code, which should provide for much harsher measures, especially for the duration of election campaigns.”

We shall remind that the sanctioned broadcasters most of all violated Article 7 of the Broadcasting Code, which, in paragraphs 2, 3 and 4, says: “While granting airtime to a party or political movement to promote their positions, a broadcaster should also grant, within the same type of programs and at the same hours, airtime to other parties and political movements without unjustified delays and without favoring a certain party, regardless of its representation in the parliament” (paragraph 2); “To encourage and facilitate pluralistic expression of opinions, broadcasters have the obligation to cover election campaigns in a truthful, balanced and impartial manner” (paragraph 3); “To ensure in the informative programs of broadcasters compliance with the principles of socio-political balance, fairness and objectivity, they shall place every news report so as: in the case of topics related to conflict situations, to abide by the principle of informing from several sources” (paragraph 4 letter c)).

Overall, in the period of September 30 – October 9, the BCC monitored the main newscasts of 14 televisions – Moldova 1, Prime, Canal 3, Canal 2, Publika TV, TV7, Jurnal TV, Accent TV, Realitatea TV, PRO TV, N4, NTV Moldova, RTR Moldova and REN Moldova.