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Opening the press conference, Nadine Gogu, Director of the Independent Journalism Centre (IJC), said that the purpose of the exercise was to monitor how fairly and accurately the election campaign was being covered in the media, to what extent the media complied with the law and met their commitments to the Broadcasting Coordinating Council. Ms. Gogu commented the behavior of five TV stations monitored under the project (Moldova 1, Prime TV, Canal 2, TV 7 and Accent TV).
“Moldova 1 was relatively balanced and impartial, they managed to ensure to some extent pluralism of opinions and diversity of sources. As for access of the election runners to the public TV station, a slight favoring of the Democrat Party was observed: the members of the party were shown and mentioned more than others, and mostly in a positive light. The slight imbalance was caused by indirect electoral coverage when reporting the activity of the public officials that are members of the Democrat Party. We believe that the message of those stories might influence the voters” perception of that particular candidate”, said Nadine Gogu.
Prime TV and Publika TV, according to the experts, had the same election coverage strategy, namely to identify problems in certain localities and show the persons who come up with concrete solutions. The same has transpired in the coverage by Canal 2. Most materials broadcast by Prime TV during the reporting period provided lopsided coverage, mainly using as sources about 50 politicians, most of them being members of the Democrat Party. “They quote in the news 1, 2, or 3 sources; however, all are loyal to a single election runner. If we compare the share of such coverage with that of other election runners, who were shown only sporadically by Prime TV, we can conclude that Prime TV is a pocket party broadcaster used as a mouthpiece by the Democrat Party, fervently campaigning for the Democrat Party”, noted Nadine Gogu. Similar behavior was observed at Canal 2, which had “the same approach, the same sources, often the same topics, images shot probably by a single team and then broadcast by several TV stations owned by the supporters of the Democrat Party”, said the expert.
According to the report, TV 7 was better than others at ensuring pluralism of opinions (the broadcaster had a relatively balanced, objective, unbiased approach; however, if compared to other election runners, the Liberal Democrats were slightly favored via a greater number of screen appearances, and such news were reported in a predominantly positive light.
Accent TV had the highest number of indirect election coverage during the reporting period: “every fourth story was biased: they included comments by the authors, selected contextual information meant to present certain persons in a negative light”. Accent TV favored heavily the Socialist Party, while disfavoring heavily the Liberal Party.
Petru Macovei, media expert, commented on the behavior of online media outlets that had been monitored (Omg.md, Pan.md, Publika.md, Prime.md, Timpul.md), noting that all websites did not inform the people during the election campaign, but promoted narrow party interests. According to Petru Macovei, the journalists often disregarded the principles of professional journalism.
According to the report, Omg.md actively promoted the leaders and election runners of Partidul Nostru (Our Party led by Renato Usatii) and often criticized the ruling parties without providing any arguments and most often targeting the Democrat Party.
An example of biased coverage (in the headings, leads, language used, such as adjectives meant to shed positive or negative light over a certain person) is provided by Pan.md web portal, whose editorial policy aimed at promoting two political parties – the Socialist Party and Partidul Nostru.
Referring to Publika.md, Petru Macovei said that the situation was “one of the worst, as this media outlet is nothing but a promoter of the election struggle of the Democrat Party (it was mentioned 52 times, of which 37 times – In a positive light)”. The expert also said that the election runners representing the Democrat Party were promoted by Publika.md so fervently that it made one believe that it was disguised publicity. The report includes a number of examples of biased approach of the authors, meant to convey certain messages to the audience. The same pattern was used every time: “The editorial policy of this website aims at highlighting the election runners of the Democrat Party. For instance, when reporting on the challenges faced by a community the solutions are always presented by just one election runner for the mayor or city hall member seat; they do not necessarily say who the candidate is, but a bit of investigation shows that it is the one supported by the Democrat Party”, said Petru Macovei.
As for Timpul.md, the authors of the monitoring report found that the Socialist Party was presented in a bad light. They criticized the representatives of this party. However, the monitoring did not show any clear favoring of other election runners.
Unimedia.info, in its turn, after an earlier period of more balanced behavior, favored the Liberal Democrats during May 15-30. The Liberal Democrats were mentioned 30 times, while the Socialists, which came second in the rating by the number of references, were mentioned twice less.
Ion Bunduchi, media expert, analyzed and presented two case studies. The first concerns the behavior of Accent TV and the second – that of Prime TV and Canal 2. In the expert's opinion, all three TV stations “are on party combat lists, they forgot what true journalism means and just follow party orders”. Ion Bunduchi gave as examples two materials broadcast by Accent TV under the special heading “Elections”, where the authors resorted to tools from the misinformation artistry kit. The expert concluded that “the journalists failed the professional maturity exam when covering elections”.
