IJC report on the electoral campaign: Three televisions massively favor the Electoral Bloc of Communists and Socialists or the Shor Party and disfavor the Action and Solidarity Party

• The public television station Moldova 1 had a balanced behavior, providing access to the majority of electoral competitors to news, without obviously favoring or disfavoring any candidate. Most of the election-themed materials were fair and impartial, but limited to only one source of information, without treating topics in detail by offering background information or including other relevant sources. Conflicting news stories were most often balanced, but the gender equality of sources was not ensured.
• The private stations Jurnal TV, Pro TV, RTR Moldova, and TV8 offered airtime to the majority of candidates who had campaign activities, without obviously favoring or disfavoring any electoral competitor. Election-themed materials were documented mostly from primary sources, and controversial stories in most cases were balanced, having provided the right to reply. The cited sources were not gender-balanced, as there were more male sources.
• NTV Moldova and Primul în Moldova failed to provide equal access to news to all electoral competitors, and covered election-themed topics in a biased and unbalanced manner. These stations massively favored the Electoral Bloc of Communists and Socialists, both through the frequency and airtime of direct interventions and the positive tone of coverage. The Action and Solidarity Party was obviously disfavored, being mentioned/cited only in a negative context. The stations ensured relative gender balance of the sources cited, but failed to ensure the diversity of sources in election-themed materials or offer the right to reply in most of controversial news stories.
• The stations Prime TV and Publika TV provided access to news to the majority of electoral candidates, presenting them mostly in a fair and objective manner. Most often, the news cited/mentioned the representatives of BECS, which was slightly favored by the frequency and airtime of interventions on Prime TV and the positive tone on Publika. The tone of presentation of other competitors was mostly neutral, with a relative pluralism of opinions, which were usually balanced in controversial news stories. There was no gender balance among sources, men being cited/mentioned more often than women.
• TV6 covered the activities of most electoral candidates in a fair and impartial manner, with the exception of PP Șor, PAS, and PACE. PP Șor was obviously favored by positive news stories, including the ones on the activities of the head of Orhei district and the mayor of Orhei, representatives of PP Șor. Representatives of PAS and President Sandu were disfavored by the large number of accusatory news stories based either on the statement of an electoral competitor, or on information from the Internet. There was insufficient diversity in the cited/mentioned sources, and some of the conflicting news stories were not balanced. The gender balance tipped towards male sources.

 
The IJC recommends to journalists to use monitoring reports as tools for self-regulation, and to the Broadcasting Council (BC) to take note of them and use monitoring data to assess whether the monitored television stations provide equal access to all candidates and respect the right to full, objective, and truthful information.
 
“As we did during the previous monitoring, we will send this report, as well as the other four that are going to be released in the coming weeks, to the BC. In some cases, we will file petitions, because, for example, the first report shows that some stations failed to comply with self-regulation standards, such as deontology, as well as with legal provisions,” underlined Nadine Gogu, the executive director of the IJC.
 
By monitoring the media, the IJC aimed to inform the public about the media behavior during the electoral campaign and the access of electoral competitors to the media, as well as to notify the regulators about the trends that might affect the performance of the media or compromise their ability to provide the public with truthful, impartial, and pluralistic information.
 
Overall, 10 broadcasters were subjected to monitoring: Moldova 1, Prime TV, Publika TV, Jurnal TV, RTR Moldova, NTV Moldova, Primul în Moldova, Pro TV, TV8, and TV6. The stations were selected according to the following criteria: audience/impact (national, regional), type of media (audiovisual), form of ownership (public, private), and language of broadcasting (Romanian, Russian).
 
This report has been prepared with the financial support of the Office of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Moldova.