IJC Report: During the Last Few Months Attempts to Misinform the Public via Media Have Amplified

Between April – June 2018, attempts to misinform the public via manipulation techniques used by journalists have amplified, the most common being: the priority information technique, the internal or external enemy technique, the national rescuer and the suggestion techniques. This is one of the conclusions of the report ‘Elements of Propaganda, Information Manipulation and Violation of Journalism Ethics in the Local Media Space (1 April – 27 June 2018)‘, launched by the Independent Journalism Center, on Thursday, 28 June. 

The findings of the report further indicate that Moldovan media continues to reflect public interest issues based on political preferences, favouring certain political parties and politicians.
Thus, researcher Victor Gotisan, the report author, said that the use of manipulation techniques intensified within the new local elections campaign, and all the 12 monitored outlets committed ethical irregularities and deviations from the professional journalism rules.
According to the researcher, ‘all 12 monitored media outlets have used the mix of facts with opinions at least once in their news, and generalisation was another widely used violation of the ethical rules’.

In addition, the most frequent ethical violations include references to sources that can not be verified, lack of the right to reply of those concerned, truncation and quoting out of context of declarations and quotations. 
In January – March 2018, IJC monitored Publika TV, Prime TV, Canal 2, Canal 3, Moldova 1, Jurnal TV, Accent TV, RTR Moldova, NTV Moldova television broadcasters, as well as online portals Noi.md, Sputnik.md and Deschide.md. The report analysed the way several events of major public interest were reflected: the sentencing of Chiril Lucinschi in the first instance, the demonstrations of 1 May and 9 May, the ’No Fear’ March, the second round of the new local elections for the Chisinau mayor's office and the protest of 24 June against the invalidation of the mayoral mandate of Andrei Nastase.

In this regard, the IJC recommends the Broadcasting Coordinating Council to interfere and monitor the TV channels the content of which is reported as a source of manipulative or false information.
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This monitoring report has been prepared by the Independent Journalism Center (IJC) as a partner in the project Media Enabling Democracy, Inclusion, and Accountability in Moldova (MEDIA-M) funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Internews. The MEDIA-M project aims to promote the development of independent and professional media in Moldova, offering citizens access to a variety of perspectives and contributing to greater media resistance to political and financial pressures.