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According to experts, the owners of mass media are influenced by politicians or they are politicians themselves, which affected the editorial policies of media outlets. The mass media behavior a week before elections did not change greatly compared to previous periods; the outlets showed the same tendency of favoring some electoral contestants and disfavoring others, to the detriment of fairness and objectivity in the presentation of information.
Representatives of the organizations that conducted the monitoring drew attention to the irregularities committed during this period and during the entire campaign by the 35 monitored media outlets (12 televisions, 10 online portals, 8 print publications and 5 radios).
Ion Bunduchi, expert of the Electronic Press Association (APEL), said that “some broadcasters with national coverage, which have the obligation to organize electoral debates according to legislation, did not do so, while regional or local broadcasters, which have no such obligation, but have the right to it, did organize debates.” He brought the example of Prime TV as one of the broadcasters with national coverage that did not organize electoral debates during the last week of the electoral campaign.
Radio Noroc and Radio Plai, two radios with national coverage, did announce and even produce several debates, but in the end gave them up, “probably because the broadcasting regulator did not react to these irregularities,” said Nadine Gogu, director of the Independent Journalism Center (IJC), which was involved in the monitoring. “Few protagonists appeared in newscasts. We expected a greater number of electoral contestants to participate in debates, but it didn’t happen. Thus, the listeners of these radios received very little information; actually, they had no access to information about the electoral platforms of electoral contestants so as to be able to decide on who to vote for,” Nadine Gogu said.
In his turn, the Association of Independent Press (AIP) Director Petru Macovei said that due to permissive legislation some public broadcasters “take advantage of electoral campaigns, airing only electoral advertising and thus thriving, but do not cover the highly important event of major public interest, that is the elections.” The expert also said that there are “few examples of good practice in the coverage of this year’s electoral campaign. Journalists and editorial teams placed themselves on one side of the imaginary barricade in this political war.”
When asked about legislative violations on the day of silence before elections and on the voting day, the experts said that “this ban [the silence requirement] has minimum effects and its essence is lost, since street advertising remains in its place, while the Internet shows what was placed earlier, and these materials are still accessible even now.”
According to Petru Macovei, this year’s electoral campaign was one more confirmation of the fact that country leadership did not act to ensure media ownership transparency and anti-concentration of mass media. “For two years we have been intensely discussing it, and there is an alternative draft law on modifying the broadcasting law, which provides for certain measures concerning anti-concentration of the media. It didn’t work because politicians have their interests in the media market, and some of them are owners of media outlets. As long as the legislation allows, I don’t think that we should expect any improvement in the near future. The media have been mainly partisan during this electoral campaign, because the owners of media outlets are influenced by politicians or they are politicians themselves,” Petru Macovei concluded.
Ion Bunduchi also said that the two-month-long media monitoring once again proved that “journalists are unable to resist the pressure of media owners, who insist on doing party journalism during electoral campaigns. Journalists should understand that. This type of journalism is the most boring. In addition, after the electoral campaign ends, media outlets have to work a lot to win some credibility in the eyes of the public.”
The cumulative results of the two months of monitoring the electoral campaign for parliamentary elections will be presented at a public event in the middle of December, where organizers will invite owners of media outlets, editors and civil society representatives.
Mass media monitoring during the electoral campaign for the 2014 parliamentary elections is conducted as part of a project financed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the US Embassy in the Republic of Moldova and the East Europe Foundation from the resources granted by the Government of Sweden through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark (DANIDA).
Concluzii generale. Raportul nr. 6 de monitorizare mass-media în campania electorală pentru alegerile parlamentare 2014 (23-30 noiembrie 2014) – General conclusions. Report no. 6 on monitoring mass media during the electoral campaign for the 2014 parliamentary elections (23-30 November 2014)
