Ro
En
Рy
CJI Executive Director Nadine Gogu said that major changes in comparison with the first report were not found, and the three stations – NTV Moldova, Accent TV and Central Television – continue to favor certain candidates. ‘The general conclusion is that the same trend was recorded in the monitoring report No 1 that we launched last week. The trend is that three TV channels with regional coverage make political partisanship in favor of certain election candidates, and another seven TV channels have a much more balanced behavior and try to reflect the election campaign in a neutral, impartial and balanced manner,’ said Nadine Gogu.
Thus, according to the report, Accent TV and NTV Moldova, which have a similar editorial policy, clearly and massively promoted the PSRM candidate, Ion Ceban.
During the press conference, Nadine Gogu added that, both at the Moldova 1 public broadcaster and at the RTR Moldova TV channel was noticed a greater presence of the candidate Ion Ceban, although they reflected the campaign in an impartially and neutral way, some news were presented in a positive context.
Another channel that manifested bias is Central Television, that favored the candidates of the ‘Sor’ Party, Valeri Klimenco from Chisinau and Pavel Verejan from Orhei. Nadine Gogu pointed out that, often, reporters of this TV channel made certain comments about the election campaign, confirmed by the sources approached by them. Also, in their materials were broadcast direct calls to vote for certain candidates.
Another problem is the fact that in several conflicting news the reaction of stated persons was lacking, and the reporters reasoned that they did not answer on their call.
Prime and Publika TV channels, which were also approached together for almost identical editorial policy, had, for the most part, a correct behavior, but disadvantaged the candidate of the ‘ACUM/DA/PAS’ Electoral Bloc, Andrei Nastase, presenting him in a negative context. Nadine Gogu mentioned that only few cases of biased materials were noticed at these channels. For example, a piece of news was broadcast entirely about Andrei Nastase's declaration of property, while declarations of property of the other competitors were overlooked.
Another biased piece of news referred to Renato Usatii, PN, candidate for mayor of Balti, about whom was transmitted certain information with archival images about the attempted assassination of a Russian businessman.
The absolute majority of the materials at the TV channel Jurnal TV, were impartial and only one piece of news slightly favored Renato Usatii, including through the contextual information. In addition to his electoral promises, Jurnal TV included details on how Usatii won the elections in 2015 in the first round, with the overwhelming majority of votes, but did not mentioned anything about the candidate's files.
The TV station TV8 presented the majority of materials impartial and objective and only in one piece of news, about the launch in the campaign of Renato Usatii was included information that favors him – the elections won in 2015 and the subsequent resignation of the mandate, but giving no details about the causee that determined him to leave the country.
According to the report, PRO TV Chisinau reflected the campaign, for the most part, correct and impartial, and provided access for all Chisinau election candidates. Octavian Ticu, the PUN candidate, was covered in a relatively positive manner, compared to other candidates, being quoted and mentioned several times. In three cases, Pro TV failed to ensure the balance of the sources. In a piece of news about Svetlana Popa, the PSRM candidate in the uninominal constituency No 33, was made a reference to the debates on Pro TV from the previous day, in which Popa did not participated. The moderator announced that she wanted to ask her about several illegal activities during the communist government, which included Svetlana Popa’s name, but the material was not balanced with the opinion of the person concerned.
Nadine Gogu added that the opinion polls presented in the news favor the most quoted candidates, as Ion Ceban and Andrei Nastase, because they appear in the top ranks of the respondents.
The report also contains recommendations made both by broadcasters and the regulatory authority. Thus, the IJC ask the Broadcasting Council to take action and use the monitoring reports to assess whether the monitored TV channels have respected the right to complete, objective and truthful information.
IJC Executive Director Nadine Gogu recalled that the first IJC monitoring report was sent to the BC, requesting the broadcasting regulator to intervene in this regard, but the Council's response was vague. We note that during the meeting of October 8, when BC members examined their own monitoring report, and the president of the BC Dragos Vicol stated that the BC did not receive any notifications on reports about the behavior of certain TV channels.
