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The poll shows that citizens of the Republic of Moldova express a high degree of scepticism over what journalists write in their materials. Thus, only 1% of respondents consider that products presented by media correspond to a great extent to reality.
Survey respondents believe that journalists are well trained professionals (49% consider that many, all or almost all Moldovan journalists are well-trained) but they are influenced by their managers (52% state that many, all or almost all Moldovan journalists are being under managers’ influence). At the same time, 53% of the respondents think that a majority of the guild representatives favour one political leader or another through manipulation or misinformation.
Journalists are also accused of presenting only part of the information they hold (43% say that many or almost all journalists do so); of being biased on the news (42%); of not verifying the information from several sources (25%); not respecting the right to privacy of the people they write about (22%); or being concerned with minor, uninteresting topics for the public (39%).
‘As far as the image of this domain is concerned, it is surely a very clear message sent by the survey respondents. We are talking about an environment accused of partisanship’, said IMAS General Director Doru Petruti.
According to the authors of the study, the dominant opinion of the respondents reveals that the Moldovan media is controlled or influenced by some politicians, who use media to settle accounts with other politicians.
Also, there is a fairly high share of those who consider that the information in the media is completely false (35%), likewise of those who believe that media in the Republic of Moldova acts on the command of other countries or international organizations (44%).
Only 3% of respondents say that media is ‘completely independent’, 12% say it is ‘rather independent’, while 59% place it as ‘completely or rather dependent’.
The poll was developed by the Research and Survey Company IMAS at the request of the Association for Development and Cooperation in Moldova. According to the Executive Director of the Association, Dumitru Ţîra, the study aims to assess the general state of the media and to determine preferences of media consumers from different domains given the latest changes to the Broadcasting Code.
The survey was conducted on a sample of 1513 respondents, 18 years of age or older, between 9 February and 4 March, 2018. The error margin is ± 2.5%.
