Media Outlets Published a Double Amount of News in The Last Week of The Election Campaign

The fifth report on monitoring media in the election campaign was launched by the Independent Journalism Center (IJC) and the Association of Independent Press (AIP) on Wednesday, November 2. Experts noted once again that the number of materials grew, and that some media outlets continued favoring/disfavoring certain candidates. Monitoring was conducted in the period of October 21-28.

In this period, the number of materials of direct or indirect electoral nature has grown significantly: televisions aired 1,118 materials, portals posted 778 materials, and newspapers published 86 materials. In print media the number of materials doubled.

“I should mention that we will attach case studies to the report we are launching today. We included into this report a special study, because we were interested especially to see the coverage on private channels after the withdrawal of candidate Marian Lupu, because before that time we saw massive favoring of this candidate. We found that after October 26 televisions Prime, Canal 2, Canal 3 and Publika TV continued disfavoring Maia Sandu and indirectly favoring Igor Dodon. We provide explanation: what we saw in certain news reports, how this indirect disfavoring was made, by means of what reports. We notice already some sort of more subtle manipulation,” said Nadine Gogu, Executive Director of the IJC.

According to the report, in the period of October 21-28, Prime TV, Canal 2, Canal 3 and Publika TV continued promoting the candidate of the Democratic Party of Moldova. Regional channel Jurnal TV favored especially Maia Sandu; NTV Moldova and Accent TV massively favored Igor Dodon, candidate of the Party of Socialists.

Public broadcaster Moldova 1, private channels Realitatea TV, Pro TV Chisinau, TV 7, N4 had a relatively balanced behavior.

Regarding portals and newspapers, the report also noted favoring/disfavoring of certain candidates.

“We find that the number of editorials, opinion articles is practically double, triple the amount of news. Normally, readers should be informed; even if the newspaper appears weekly, the number of news items should be greater, so that readers know and can cast informed and conscious votes. And the problem of portals remains the same: they continue posting a lot of operative news items, but do not always comply with the principle of balance,” said Ion Mazur, Program Coordinator of the AIP.

Maia Sandu, Igor Dodon and Marian Lupu were the candidates who were cited or mentioned the most often in relevant materials. They were followed at a great distance by Iurie Leanca and the members of Our Party.

In the 4 newspapers, the candidate most often disfavored through the frequency of appearances and the general negative context was Marian Lupu. The other candidates were mentioned both in negative and positive contexts.

The two media organizations are conducting monitoring in the period of September 15 – November 13, 2016. The next weekly report will be presented on Thursday, November 10.