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Media Partisanship in Elections Continued in the Second Round
The three reports on monitoring the media in elections, launched by the Association of Independent Press (AIP) and the Independent Journalism Center (IJC) during November, just like the final report presented at a round table on November 25, found serious violations of the Code of Ethics and the current legislation by media outlets.
Thus, the fifth report on monitoring the media in the election campaign, launched on November 2, included the results of monitoring in the period of October 21-28. According to the report, in this period Prime TV, Canal 2, Canal 3 and Publika TV continued promoting the candidate of the Democratic Party of Moldova. Jurnal TV, a channel with regional coverage, favored especially candidate Maia Sandu, while NTV Moldova and Accent TV massively favored Igor Dodon, candidate of the Party of Socialists. As for portals and newspapers, the report also found favoring and disfavoring of certain candidates.
The sixth report on monitoring the media in the election campaign, launched on Thursday, November 10, found continued signs of favoring and disfavoring of certain candidates. In the reported period, October 29 – November 5, there was a nearly 40% decrease of news in broadcasting and a sharp increase of the number of materials published by news portals. Igor Dodon was the most favored candidate in terms of the context of appearances. He appeared 116 times in positive light and 80 times in negative light. Maia Sandu was mostly disfavored, appearing in negative light in 146 materials and in positive light in 103 materials.
Manipulation was more pronounced, especially in the second round of elections – it is one of the conclusions of the seventh monitoring report, presented on Wednesday, November 16. The report covered the period of November 6-11, 2016. The 12 televisions aired mainly political materials and less of the topics related to the election campaign, according to the report. Igor Dodon was favored in 158 materials and disfavored in 87. Maia Sandu appeared in positive light in 91 materials and was disfavored 229 times. In the 12 news portals and three newspapers of the four monitored (after the first round of elections, Panorama newspaper suspended its printed version), Igor Dodon was disfavored more often than favored, and Maia Sandu was presented almost equally, both in positive and negative contexts.
“Mass media failed the test of professional maturity in the election campaign,” concluded the final monitoring report of the IJC and AIP, launched on Friday, November 25, at a round table with the participation of journalists, media experts, representatives of the civil society, the Broadcasting Coordinating Council and the Parliamentary Commission for Mass Media.
On Wednesday, November 16, the Independent Journalism Center (IJC) and the Association of Independent Press (AIP) asked for the dismissal of the chairman of the Broadcasting Coordinating Council (BCC), Dinu Ciocan, and the BCC members who failed to “fulfill their obligations” during the election campaign. The executive directors of the two media organizations, Nadine Gogu and Petru Macovei, said at a press conference that the BCC members did not apply properly the law to the broadcasters that violated the Broadcasting Code in the recent election campaign, thus damaging the citizens’ right to objective information. Particularly, they drew attention to the fact that in the previous meeting of the BCC, on November 11, sanctions were not applied gradually, according to the provisions of the Broadcasting Code.
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After at the meeting on November 11 the Broadcasting Coordinating Council (BCC) repeatedly applied the maximum fine of 5,400 lei to seven televisions, the fact criticized by the civil society, those broadcasters continued violating the broadcasting legislation. So, at the meeting on November 25, BCC was forced to resort to tougher sanctions: four channels were deprived of the right to broadcast advertising for three days (72 hours), while others were penalized with fines. The BCC based its decisions on the results of the third report on monitoring 14 TV channels in the period of October 31 – November 13, 2016. The broadcasting regulator decided to deprive Publika TV, Accent TV, NTV Moldova and Jurnal TV of the right to broadcast advertising for three days. Other two channels, Prime TV and Ren Moldova, received the maximum fine of 5,400 lei, while TV7 received the minimum fine.
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The Parliamentary Commission on Legal Issues, Appointments and Immunity was to vote on Wednesday, November 9, on the report for presentation and examination in the second reading in the plenum the draft law on modifying and supplementing the Law on Access to Information. The draft was, however, withdrawn from the agenda at the demand of the MPs who had registered the legislative initiative. They claimed that they needed time to do more work on the document and proposed discussions to be postponed until the end of November. “It is better to have it postponed than rejected or voted in a truncated version,” explained one of the authors of the legislative initiative, MP Gheorghe Mocanu, for Media Azi.
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On Thursday, November 17, the Parliament adopted in the second reading the draft law on modifying article 71 of the Contraventions Code, introducing bigger fines for violations of the legislation on access to information. For example, presentation of a reply with incorrect data will be penalized with a fine of 400-500 conventional units (from 20,000 to 25,000 lei) to a responsible official. Proposals on the draft law on modifying and supplementing Law no. 982-XIV of 11.05.2000 on access to information were developed by IJC experts within an advocacy campaign for amending the Law on Access to Information.
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The parliamentary commission for mass media, at its meeting on Tuesday, November 1, examined and issued a positive opinion on proposals to amend and supplement articles 2, 3, 6, 13, 22 and 40 of the current Broadcasting Code, which came from the Broadcasting Coordinating Council and were presented as a legislative initiative by the Government on October 19, 2016. According to media experts, so far the Broadcasting Code underwent 94 modifications to more than half of its 68 articles, which haven’t made it better, and they added that it would be more appropriate to adopt the new Broadcasting Code, which is expecting to be voted in the second reading.
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The Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM) suspended on Tuesday, November 1, its regulation on access to courts, which contained restrictions in conditions for the media participation in public hearings. Those restrictions included the requirement to submit an application 24 hours before the court hearing, mandatory presentation of the ID card and a copy of it, and the obligation for the media to have special accreditation for access to courts. The SCM reached the conclusion that this regulation had some erroneous provisions that needed to be reviewed. This suspension came after non-governmental organizations and media outlets in October signed a declaration qualifying these measures as abusive and asked the SCM to annul this regulation.
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On Tuesday, November 15, 2016, the Promo-LEX Association communicated about several cases of intimidation of journalists in the Transnistrian region. Thus, freelance journalist Natalia Scurtul was summoned to the militia department in Tiraspol after an application was submitted to the militia by a group of citizens who were displeased by the opinions that the journalist expressed at a private television in the region. Then, on November 12, militia representatives tried to forbid a young man from Bender to distribute the “Celovek I Ego Prava” (“Man and His Rights”) newspaper. The incident was filmed by passers-by.
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The first digital multiplex, which offers national coverage to 15 TV channels, was launched in Moldova on Tuesday, November 1, 2016. They cover up to 80% of the population, and the first stage involves 8 TV channels that will provide terrestrial digital broadcasting after contracts are signed with Radiocomunicatiii State Enterprise: TV Moldova 1, Prime TV, TVR Moldova, Canal 2, Canal 3, Publika TV, N4, Accent TV. Other 7 broadcasters with licenses for Multiplex A – Agro TV, Jurnal TV, TV7, ITV, Regional TV, Super TV and STS – are to be included into the package immediately after they sign service contracts and ensure a source of signal for Head-End.
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Members of the Supervisory Board (SB) of the public broadcaster “Teleradio-Moldova” chose, with the votes of five members out of six, Nicolae Spataru as chairman of the Board. The current chairman is a member of the Writers’ Union of Moldova and the Writers’ Union of Romania. In 1993 he received the debut prize at the International Book Fair in Chisinau. Currently, the SB of “Teleradio-Moldova” works with an incomplete composition of six members.
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The Press Council (PC) gathered in its new composition at a meeting on Thursday, November 24, 2016, and chose its chairman. The 7 members present at the meeting by unanimous vote entrusted journalist Viorica Zaharia to this position. The new composition of the PC, chosen on October 26, 2016 for a two-year term, includes Alina Ţurcanu, Viorica Zaharia, Iulia Semionova, Ecaterina Jekova, Dumitru Ţîra, Ludmila Andronic, Inga Burlacu, Olga Manole and Vitalie Zama.
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A group of 20 journalists, civic activists and IT specialists participated in the period of November 2-3 in a training course on data journalism, organized in Chisinau by the Independent Journalism Center. Romanian expert Alex Morega spoke to them about information security, teaching them to protect their sources and recover documents from official websites if they are withdrawn intentionally. Journalist Dumitru Lazur also spoke to students about national and international databases.
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At a public debate on Thursday, November 10, the Independent Journalism Center launched a study titled “Evaluation of the Legal Framework Regulating Advertising, and Recommendations on its Optimization”. Its authors, media expert Ion Bunduchi and lawyer Eugeniu Ribca, drew attention to the fact that the law on advertising needs to be modified or replaced with a new law. “We should clearly distinguish the meaning of political and electoral advertising,” underlined lawyer Eugeniu Ribca among other things. The event was attended by MPs, members of the Broadcasting Coordinating Council, representatives of the Competition Council and of the Consumer Protection Agency, journalists, representatives of advertising agencies, etc. Based on this study, recommendations will be made on amending the legislation or on developing a new law.
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The poll “People’s perception of false and distorted information in the media”, produced by IMAS in the period of September 1-8, 2016 at the request of the Independent Journalism Center, shows that 60 percent of consumers of socio-political news in Moldova believe they can identify manipulating and propagandistic materials that appear in the media. According to the research, the share of consumers of socio-political news that sense manipulation in the media grew from 51 to 60 percent compared with January 2016. The most affected by manipulation are still political debates and newscasts on TV. The most perceived by consumers of socio-political news are such manipulation techniques as topic choice, sensational headlines, reporting out of context, media materials produced to create image for a politician or a public person, manipulating use of an expert’s opinions, etc.
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Students from two educational institutions – “Spiru Haret” theoretic lyceum in Chisinau and “Olimp” theoretic lyceum in Costesti village of Ialoveni district – benefitted from media literacy lessons organized by the Independent Journalism Center (IJC). Thus, on November 9 and 10, accordingly, they met journalist Liliana Barbarosie from Radio Free Europe within the “Call us to your school!” campaign. Participants learned about the phenomena that currently happen in the country’s mass media, such as media monopolization and concentration of several media outlets in the hands of some politicians. “More televisions does not mean more opinions. Unfortunately, the information that gets into our homes is not necessarily true,” underlined journalist Liliana Barbarosie.
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The TV show Media Azi
In the 24th edition of the Media Azi show, journalist Dumitru Lazur spoke with Nicolae Damaschin, a member of the Broadcasting Coordinating Council (BCC), about the impact of sanctions applied to the broadcasters that violated the legislation in the recent election campaign. Because of too small sanctions, broadcasters continued committing the same violations after being penalized by the BCC with public warning or even maximum fine of 5,400 lei. According to Nicolae Damaschin, the current Broadcasting Code is to blame, since it does not allow sanctioning broadcasters depending on the seriousness of their violations.
The 25th edition of the show referred to false information in the media and how media consumers should react to it. This issue was discussed by journalist Nicolae Negru and media expert Aneta Gonta. The show’s protagonists came up with recommendations to consumers on how to protect themselves from manipulation and disinformation.
The topic of the 26th edition concerned the regulation of the Superior Council of Magistracy that contained provisions restricting participation of the media in public hearings. The document appeared in the Official Monitor this October, being harshly criticized by the civil society, and on November 1 it was suspended by the SCM. In this context, the show’s moderator, journalist Ivan Sveatcenco, and his guest, lawyer Pavel Midrigan, wondered: Why was the adoption of such a regulation needed, if court hearings are public? And, since the SCM regulation was only suspended, not annulled, what might its future be?
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