Jurnal TV Was Fined for the Moderator’s Aggressive Language

The Broadcasting Council (BC) fined Jurnal TV with MDL 5,000 for accusing many people and institutions, without requesting their opinion in ‘60 minutes with Vasile Nastase’ show of 1 February. The decision was made after the BC monitored the broadcaster, following the notification by Democratic Party (PD).

PD representatives claimed that although only Sergiu Litvinenco, representative of the ‘Acum - DA Platform and PAS’ Electoral Bloc was invited, the discussions focused particularly on the Democratic Party and its election candidates. PD said that television broadcaster violated its own editorial policy for the election campaign and requested to sanction it.

Monitoring results showed that many topics were addressed during the show, such as: the first applications for citizenship through investments (Ilan Sor’s wife, Sara Sor, her father and brother); intimidation of some candidatesof the ‘ACUM’ Election Bloc; the case of Gheorghe Petic. Concurrently, BC monitoring found that show moderator Vasile Nastase used an aggressive and biased language during the show, accusing seriously many people and institutions without showing their position.

Jurnal TV representatives asked to postpone the case review for another day, arguing that they did not have enough time for fact-finding. BC rejected this request and, as it was not the first violation, Jurnal TV was fined with MDL 5,000, according to Article 13 of the Audiovisual Media Services Code.

The TV channel was also obliged to broadcast the text of the BC decision within 48 hours from the adoption date, in audio and/or video format, at least 3 times in the prime time, of which once in the main newscast program in case of generalist and/or news audiovisual media services.
The sanctioned media services provider may appeal the BC decision in the court.