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On Friday, September 30, the School of Advanced Journalism graduates of the past 10 years gathered in Chisinau at a conference titled “Independent Journalism: Today’s Challenges and Tomorrow’s Perspectives.” Participants in the event – School graduates, trainers, guests from abroad – talked about the evolution of journalism in Moldova over the past 10 years and highlighted the main criteria that define independent journalism. SAJ Director Sorina Stefarta advised current students to maintain their integrity if they want to start a career in journalism. Some of the graduates, participants in the meeting said that the SAJ “produces” journalists of good quality due to professional trainers. Special guest at the SAJ meeting of graduates was Steven Knowlton, professor of journalism at Dublin City University, Ireland, the author of the first study program of the SAJ.
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The IJC and the API presented four monitoring reports, notifying about media partisanship in the election campaign
In October, two media organizations that monitor the behavior of the media in elections – the Association of Independent Press (API) and the Independent Journalism Center (IJC) – made public four reports on the weekly monitoring of the media.
The first report was launched on Wednesday, October 4, and included the results of monitoring for the previous two weeks of media coverage of the election period, September 15-29. According to the report, the majority of the 28 monitored media outlets (12 televisions, 12 online portals and 4 newspapers) in the pre-election period did barricade journalism rather than providing honest and ethical information to citizens.
The second report, presented on October 12, refers to the first week of the election campaign that started on September 29. It also noted deviations from the rules of journalistic ethics and from the provisions of the Broadcasting Code and the Elections Code.
According to the third report, referring to the second week of the campaign, some media outlets continued covering the election campaign in a tendentious, unbalanced and manipulating manner, and the Broadcasting Coordinating Council (BCC) failed to show a behavior fitting to the broadcasting regulator at this time.
The fourth report noted slight improvement of situation in the third week of the campaign, but it drew attention to the fact that some media outlets continued being biased and failed to assume a neutral attitude to candidates in elections.
All the reports are accompanied by case studies. Media monitoring by the IJC and the API is conducted in the period of September 15 – November 13, 2016.
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In its 2 monitoring reports presented in public meetings on Monday, October 17, and Friday, October 28, the Broadcasting Coordinating Council confirmed that broadcasters either favored or disfavored certain candidates in elections, thus breaching Article 7 paragraphs (2), (3) and (4) letter c) of the Broadcasting Code. Thus, at the meeting of October 17, channels Prime TV, Canal 2, Canal 3, Publika TV, Accent TV and NTV Moldova, and later Jurnal TV, received public warnings. On Friday, October 28, the same channels – Prime, Canal 2, Canal 3, Publika TV, Jurnal TV, Accent TV and NTV Moldova were sanctioned with the maximum fine. At the same meeting, channels Realitatea TV, RTR Moldova, N4 and Pro TV were sanctioned with public warning. BCC members mentioned that the conclusions of the BCC monitoring largely coincide with the conclusions from media organizations’ reports.
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On Friday, October 7, the Independent Journalism Center organized public debates, where they returned to public attention the draft law on amending and supplementing the Law on Access to Information. It was voted by the Parliament in the first reading in July 2016, but examination in the second reading has been delayed. The event was attended by media experts, journalists, lawyers, as well as the MPs who presented the legislative initiative to the Parliament. Representatives of the Government, the institution that proposed the most amendments to the draft law, did not respond to invitation. The public debate is part of an extensive advocacy campaign conducted by the IJC for years now. At the same time, the IJC sent to the Parliament a new petition, asking it to finalize work on the adoption of the draft law on amending and supplementing Law no. 982-XIV of May 11, 2000 on Access to Information.
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The Parliamentary Commission on Legal Issues, Appointments and Immunity met on Wednesday, October 19, to examine amendments to the draft law on access to information and produce the report that is to be presented to MPs for voting in the second reading. Members of the commission and the authors of the legislative initiative, however, failed to find middle ground in terms of accepting some amendments proposed by the Government, parliamentary commissions, the Ministry of Justice, the National Anticorruption Center after voting in the first reading. There was a long dispute at the meeting, especially about the request for information in electronic form and introduction of an electronic register. The meeting was postponed, and the discussion is to be resumed.
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On Thursday, October 13, the Independent Journalism Center, the Association of Independent Press, the Electronic Press Association, “Access-info” Center, the Journalistic Investigations Center, the Association of Independent TV Journalists condemned the Government decision of October 12, 2016 on proposing dismissal of Ion Terguta from the position of director of MIR Broadcasting Company and appointing to this position Valeriu Renita, a person convenient for the current government. The signatories qualified this decision as a response to the journalist’s often criticism of the government and to his position towards media concentration in the hands of a group of politicians, monopoly on the advertising market, etc. The six media organizations asked the Government to review this decision.
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On Tuesday, October 25, ten organizations – Independent Journalism Center, Association of Independent Press, Journalistic Investigations Center, “Ziarul de Garda” newspaper, “Acces-info” Center, Electronic Press Association, Press Freedom Committee, Young Journalist Center of Moldova, Legal Resources Center of Moldova, Public Association Center for European Initiatives “EuroPass” – protested against restrictions on access to information imposed by the Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM). By means of a recently adopted Regulation, the SCM obliged the journalists who want to attend court hearings to submit written requests for access to the courtroom at least 24 hours before the opening of the hearing, and in addition to their credentials to present their identity card with a copy of it. Signatories qualified these provisions as abusive and absurd, and asked the SCM to annul the Regulation.
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On Wednesday, October 26, the commission established for selection of members for the Press Council (PC) of the Republic of Moldova chose a new composition of the Council. The following persons have been chosen to join the Press Council for the period of October 2016 – October 2018: Viorica Zaharia, Alina Ţurcanu, Iulia Semionova, Ecaterina Jekova, Dumitru Ţîra, Ludmila Andronic, Inga Burlacu, Olga Manole and Vitalie Zama. Candidates had been proposed by non-governmental organizations, academia, media and media consumers.
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At the meeting on Friday, October 7, the Broadcasting Coordinating Council renewed the broadcasting license of “Vocea Basarabiei” radio for a period of 7 years in connection with its expiry on October 13, 2016. According to the outlet’s director Veaceslav Tibuleac, there will be no great changes in the broadcast schedule. The current owner of radio “Vocea Basarabiei” is Canal X SRL company, whose founder is Igor Cijov.
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The Transnistrian leader rejected on Monday, October 3, the set of laws that aroused the discontent of journalists in the region because they limited the rights of official media outlets and could introduce censorship. The laws were returned to MPs for reexamination, according to novostipmr.com news agency from Tiraspol. The region’s MPs adopted this September a set of amendments referring to official media outlets: reduction of the journalists’ salary fund, change of the procedure of appointment and dismissal of editors-in-chief, restriction of official media’s access to events organized in the region, prohibition to use video and audio equipment, etc.
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A Hackathon-winning team invented an app to protect the online community from trolls
The TROLLESS team, winner of the second “The Fifth Power” Media Hackathon organized by the Independent Journalism Center and Deutsche Welle Akademie in July 2016, officially launched on Monday, October 3, a project with the same name, aimed to identify sources of manipulation in the new media and to isolate them. The purpose of the app is to fight manipulation and disinformation via social networks. At the same time, the app will identify false profiles and trolling profiles and report them to Facebook. They also launched a video tutorial about how to install and use the Trolless app.
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Discrimination can be fought if you know your rights – this was the message shared within a project implemented by the Independent Journalism Center (IJC), which aimed to return to general attention the phenomenon of discrimination. Its activities include video production, press clubs and a number of journalistic materials.
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The Independent Journalism Center (IJC) has launched the moldova-azi.md multimedia platform, which contains all video materials produced so far by the Advocacy and Production Department of the IJC. Thus, users will be able to access and view from documentaries and spots to debate shows and tutorials “ABC-ul presei”. Video materials can be published without restrictions by the interested televisions or websites.
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Media literacy lessons within the “Call us to your school!” campaign, conducted by the Independent Journalism Center (IJC), continued during the entire month of October. Thus, at the Lyceum of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova in Chisinau and “B.P. Hasdeu” Lyceum in Drochia, over 50 students spoke with IJC experts about the importance of media consumption, journalists’ neutrality, and about how they can read the press so as not to fall prey to manipulation. Also, a group of 33 students of “Mihai Eminescu” lyceum in Ungheni found out how to defend themselves from information manipulation. The moderators of these meetings – journalists Diana Raileanu and Liliana Barbarosie from Radio Free Europe and media expert Viorica Zaharia – taught young people to filter the information they consume and the criteria they should be guided by in order to distinguish between professional and manipulating news reports.
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The TV show Media Azi
Journalist Dumitru Lazur spoke in the 21st edition of the “Media Azi” show with Victor Spanu, one of the authors of the Trolless app, which helps identifying suspect profiles on Facebook. The app had been created with the support of the Independent Journalism Center (IJC). The topic of the 22nd edition of “Media Azi” show was the results of the first reports on monitoring the media behavior in the election campaign. Nadine Gogu, Executive Director of the IJC, and her guests, journalist Vitalie Calugareanu and member of the Broadcasting Coordinating Council (BCC) Olga Gututui, spoke about how the media cover the election campaign and how the BCC ensures correct coverage of the campaign. In the 23rd edition of the show, journalist Nicolae Negru as host and his guest, journalist Ion Terguta, commented on the Government decision to dismiss the director of the MIR broadcasting company branch in Moldova Ion Terguta and to install a convenient person at the company.
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