IJC Report: Several Moldovan media institutions present the facts selectively, resort to manipulations and use discriminating language

Four out of the eleven media institutions monitored during April and May 2017 proved to bias when writing news, expressing support for a particular [political] party in the text; exaggerated facts and distorted the sources' messages by truncating their declarations. These are some of the conclusions contained in the sixth monitoring report "propaganda elements, information manipulation and violation of the journalistic deontological norms in the local media space", launched by the Independent Journalism Center (IJC) on Thursday, June 22nd, 2017.

Among the monitored topics by the expert Viorica Zaharia are listed: Veaceslav Platon's sentencing to 18 years of prison, Lilian Carp - deputy of the liberal party - quitting the parliamentary majority, adoption in the first reading of the projects for electoral system modification, as well as the Solidarity March "No Fear!".

According to Viorica Zaharia, "the TV Channels Publika TV and Prime favoured in their news the Democratic Party, resorting to various manipulation techniques as selective presentation of facts, distortion of the sources' messages, coming up to declarations' falsification and labeling. The Accent TV Channel express partisanship in favour of the Socialist Party, fact stated especially in the news regarding the adoption of the law project on the introduction of the mixed voting system. Also it used exaggeration of facts and message distortion of sources by truncating their declarations. At the same time, Sputnik.md used a discriminating language towards sexual minorities, imposing a condemning attitude of this social group in news".

IJC recommends to the media institutions and journalists to give up the practice selection of the reflected facts in the news depending on the proprietor's interests and prompts them to inform the audience equidistantly, without protecting or promoting the image of a party or political leader. The members of the Audiovisual Coordination Council are recommended to watch the news TV programmes produced in the Republic of Moldova and to take measures against penalizing falseness and other manipulating actions of journalists, that constitute violations of the Audiovisual Code. The recommendation for the Council for Prevention and Elimination of Discrimination and Ensuring Equality is to monitor the way in which the press reflects events relating to social groups vulnerable to discrimination, in order to sanction deviations from norms referring to the prohibition of stereotypes propaganda and of discriminating language.

IJC will continue monitoring the mass-media, and the consumers of the press are prompted to inform themselves from several sources in order to avoid the risk of receiving an erroneous and manipulating information.
___________________________
This report was prepared by the Independent Journalism Center within the Media campaign against false and tendentious information STOP FALS!, carried out by the Association of Independent Press (AIP), Independent Journalism Center (IJC) and Association VIP of Independent Television Journalists of Moldova (AITJ).