NTV and Rossiya 1 Journalists Not Admitted in Moldova  
 

A group of journalists from the Russian Federation, representing NTV and Rossiya 1 TV channels, were prevented from entering Moldova at the Chisinau Airport and were sent back to Moscow. Border Police claimed that the journalists could not explain the purpose of their visit to Moldova. The senior consultant of the President’s Press Service Carmena Lupei, however, posted on a social network that the journalists had an interview scheduled with President Dodon. When the portal of the IJC, Media-azi.md, questioned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about whether the Russian journalists were accredited for this visit to Moldova, the Ministry refused to comment without a written request for information. 

The SCJ Forced Jurnal TV to Broadcast the Spots of PD
 

Competition for Three Vacant Positions of Members of ‘Teleradio-Moldova’ Supervisory Board
 

The Broadcasting Council (BC) announced a call to fill the vacant positions on the Supervisory Board (SB) of the Teleradio-Moldova national media service provider (formerly the Council of Observers). The call launches a competition to select three new SB members for a six year term.

The Press Council Discussed Professional Ethics during an Electoral Campaign
 

The Press Council invited several media outlets demonstrating good journalistic practices during the parliamentary election campaign to present their experiences at a round table discussion on February 11. The outlets were chosen on the basis of monitoring reports of the IJC and Association of Independent Press (AIP).

The discussion was attended by journalists, editors, media experts and members of the Broadcasting Council. The representatives of the selected outlets – consisting of Aneta Grosu, Editor-in-Chief of Ziarul de Gardă (ZdG), Victoria Dumbrava, Editor-in-Chief of Agora.md, Evghenii Şolari, an editor of the Russian portal NewsMaker.md and Ana Gherciu, Editor-in-Chief at Moldova.org portal - shared their experiences reporting on the elections. Chairperson of the Press Council Viorica Zaharia also spoke at the event, urging journalists to have a critical approach to reporting candidates’ electoral promises and to cover the electoral campaign in an unbiased manner.

IJC and AIP Launched Five Reports Monitoring Media Behavior During the Electoral Campaign
 

The Independent Journalism Center (IJC) and the Association of Independent Press (AIP) continued to monitor the behavior of 28 media outlets (12 TV stations, 16 portals and 1 newspaper) during the electoral campaign in February. To date the two media organisations have presented five monitoring reports at press conferences.  The first report was released in January. The second report found that, although the quantity of neutral news was growing compared to the previous monitoring period, the publishing policy and one-sided coverage of media outlets affiliated with certain candidates remained very visible. According to the third monitoring report, PD candidate Vlad Plahotniuc featured most often on TV, while his electoral competitor Ilan Sor made “headlines in the online press.” The fourth report stated that during February 9-16, the Democratic Party, the Party of Socialists and the “Sor” Political Party were presented positively. On the other side, the ACUM was portrayed most negatively, followed by the PDM and the “Sor” Party. At the same time, some improvements were noted in the online press regarding the correct presentation of information about the contestants, but there were gaps in granting the right to reply to the people mentioned in certain statements. The fifth media monitoring report for the 2019 parliamentary elections noted a continuation of these trends.

BC Publicly Warned Eight TV Channels for Inappropriate Coverage of the Election Campaign
 

On February 15, the members of the Broadcasting Council (BC) publicly warned eight TV channels against inappropriate coverage of the start of the election campaign. Prime TV, Publika TV, Canal 2, Canal 3, Accent TV, NTV Moldova, Orhei TV and Central Television channels were sanctioned for not covering the perspective of the opposition – a violation of the Audiovisual Media Services Code. Moldova 1, Jurnal TV and RTR Moldova received warnings for smaller irregularities. According to BC, only two TV channels – TV8 and Pro TV Chisinau – demonstrated correct conduct.
The authority monitored a total of 13 TV channels and the first report covered the period of January 25 - February 3.

Eight TV stations were sanctioned again by BC for repeated violations in the coverage of the electoral campaign
 

For the second week in a row, Prime TV, Publika TV, Canal 2, Canal 3, Accent TV, NTV Moldova, Orhei TV and Central Television channels were found in violation of legal provisions on coverage of the election campaign. The violations were noted in the second monitoring report of the BC, presented at a meeting on February 21. The TV channels were fined MDL 5,000 for these repeated violations. At the meeting, BC member Olga Gututui proposed that harsher fines amounting to MDL 10,000 should be imposed on all the TV channels in question, except Canal 2 and Canal 3. In her opinion, they demonstrated improved behavior compared to the previous period. However, Gututui’s proposal was not accepted by the other BC members. Gututui also stated that PRO TV Chisinau and TV8 continued to demonstrate good practices, and that TV8 presented more candidates in the single-member constituencies than the Moldova 1 public TV channel.

Jurnal TV Fined for One-Sided Representation of Facts
 

The BC fined Jurnal TV MDL 5,000 for discussing several persons and institutions without requesting their input in the TV show “60 minutes with Vasile Nastase” on February 1. BC monitored the broadcaster following a notification by Democratic Party (PD). PD representatives claimed that although only Sergiu Litvinenco, representative of the “Acum - DA Platform and PAS” (PPDA) Electoral Bloc was invited, the discussions focused particularly on the PD and its election candidates. After another notification from the DP on February 21, Jurnal TV was fined MDL 5,000 again for violating the broadcasting law during the “Cabinetul din Umbra” show (“The Room in the Shadow”), attended by PPDA leader Andrei Nastase.

Media-M Project Updates

Facebook report: Moldovan Trolls Allegedly “Connected” With Government Employees
 

Facebook acknowledged the existence of fake accounts on its social network, which the application “Trolless” has been fighting since 2016. In February, during the parliamentary electoral campaign, Facebook developed a special report for Moldova. According to the report, the social network removed 168 Facebook accounts, 28 pages and eight Instagram accounts for engaging in coordinated behavior targeting people in Moldova. “We identified these accounts through our internal investigation into Moldova-linked coordinated inauthentic behavior. Our investigation benefited from a tip shared by a local civil society organization,” stated a press release of Facebook on February 14.
“Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our manual review found that some of this activity was linked to employees of the Moldovan Government,” said Facebook. In turn, the Moldovan Government issued a press release stating that it does not control the activity of its employees on their private social network accounts, but will contact Facebook for additional information on this report.
The authors of “Trolless” have been investigating fake accounts on Facebook for a few years. The application was developed at the media Hackathon in 2016. In 2018, with the support of the Independent Journalism Center, Internews Moldova and USAID under the “MEDIA-M” program, the “Trolless” team launched a platform to document trolling activity. Trolless brought approximately 700 fake profiles to the attention of Facebook and requested that the social media platform take action to combat the phenomenon.

IJC Launched the 2018 Moldovan Press Status Index
 

Political influence on the quality of journalism, continued misinformation and manipulation through the media, and growing internal propaganda – these and other phenomena characterized the media in 2018 according to the Moldovan Press Status Index (MPSI) Annual Report, published by the Independent Journalism Center (IJC) on February 28. This third annual report was published in the framework of the (MEDIA-M) Project, carried out by IJC and Internews and funded by USAID.

Freedom House published the latest media policy brief Freedom House released its annual Freedom in the World Report for 2019, including new scores for Moldova and Transnistria on freedom, political rights and civil liberties.  The Freedom in the World Report on Moldova highlights issues that continue to hamper democratic governance in the country, such as pervasive corruption in the government sector, links between major political parties and powerful economic interests, and deficiencies in the rule of law.

Politicians are increasingly present on social networks during the current electoral campaign for the Parliamentary elections. How did Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Odnoklassniki influence the behavior of those who want to acquire power and control media? The topic was discussed during Media Azi program by journalist Anastasia Nani and her guest communication expert Cristian Saulea. In another edition of Media Azi, journalist Nicolae Negru and his guest, media researcher and the Executive Director of the Electronic Press Association Ion Bunduchi discussed the effectiveness of electoral advertising on radio and TV, as well as the explanations behind the EUR 4,000 fees requested by certain TV stations.

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