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Some Journalists Refused to Cover the PDM National Assembly – For Moldova ‘as an Act of Solidarity with TV8 and Jurnal TV’

22 October 2018
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The team of the Center for Investigative Journalism (CIJM), including the Anticoruptie.md team and the photo reporter Constantin Grigorita, member of the Association of Independent Press (AIP), decided not to cover the PDM National Assembly - For Moldova, which took place on 21 October, in protest against the Democratic Party's earlier decision to restrict the access of TV8 and Jurnal TV journalists to the events organised at the party’s headquarters.
Constantin Grigorita published on the personal Facebook page on Sunday, 21 October, a limited number of photos from the event of the Democratic Party and a picture with the following text: ‘There would have been more pictures of today's event organised by PDM, but as an act of solidarity with colleagues from several TV stations: TV8 and Jurnal TV and other journalists, who are inconvenient for this party and who have limited access to events organised at the PDM headquarters...’.


The CIJM and Anticoruptie.md teams, which also decided not to cover the assembly, explained that they ignored the event organised by PDM both for their refusal of media institutions’ access to the party’s press conferences and because ‘during the last years, since the Democratic Party has taken over the governance, the access to information of public interest has considerably worsened’, but also because the attacks of the trolls, close to the Democrats, against journalists and social networks have increased, including theft of image, cloning of personal pages of some journalists.
‘There is an increasing pressure on journalists and media outlets that do their work professionally, and none of the cases of media abuse has been elucidated by the law enforcement bodies and the guilty persons were not held accountable for that. We remind the case of the abusive seizure of the Rezina newspaper ‘Cuvantul’ or the attacks of Ilan Sor and his deputy, Marina Tauber, against journalists’, CIJM and Anticoruptie.md warn.
Another argument of investigative journalists regarding the refusal to cover the event is that ‘media outlets close to the PD deviate seriously from ethical norms, which affect the overall image of and trust in Moldovan media’.
 
We remind that journalists from TV8 and Jurnal TV were denied again the access to the Democratic Party’s headquarters. Party representatives explained that they made this decision ‘because of the editorial policy’ of the said TV stations.
Non-governmental media organisations condemned repeatedly the selective access of journalists to public events, qualifying them as unacceptable for any political party, ‘especially for a ruling party that qualifies itself as an adept of democratic values’.

Photo source: Privesc.eu screenshot