Manipulation by Means of Video or Audio Recordings, is Used More and More Frequently by Some Media Outlets in the Republic of Moldova

The main violation admitted by all 12 monitored media outlets is the mix of facts and opinions, followed by the selective presentation of facts and statements, and the failure to give persons featured in the news the right to reply. This is one of the conclusions of the ‘Elements of Propaganda, Information Manipulation and Violation of Journalism Ethics in the Local Media Space (1 April – 30 June 2019)’ Report, launched by the Independent Journalism Center, on Tuesday, 16 July.

According to the author of the report, Victor Gotisan, the mix of facts and opinions was one of the manipulation techniques that media outlets used most frequently when referring to the post-election negotiations between PSRM and the ‘ACUM’ Bloc; investment of Government led by Maia Sandu; the collapse of the block of flats in Otaci and the protest organized by the ‘ACUM’ Bloc.
The Report states that the journalists were using the tendentious and ironic headlines more and more frequently during April – June 2019, also preferring the technique of negative image transfer to politicians. Also, the reference period had the largest (compared to the last two years of monitoring) number of registered cases where media resorted to manipulation by video or audio recordings.

As a solution, the IJC recommends the Broadcasting Council (BC) to take action and monitor the TV channels that reportedly broadcast manipulative information, in order to find derogations from legislation and to apply corresponding sanctions. To this end, IJC will send a letter accompanied by the monitoring report to the BC Director. At the same time, IJC urges the editors of TV channels to monitor the editorial content for it to meet the press’s mission to inform the public – namely, to disseminate neutral, equidistant and objective information.
As many as 12 national media outlets: three news portals – Sputnik.md, Kp.md, Unimedia.info, and nine TV channels – Moldova 1 TV, Prime TV, Canal 3, Central Television (Orhei), Jurnal TV, TV8, PRO TV Chisinau, Accent TV, NTV Moldova were monitored during the period April – June 2019.

This September IJC will publish a new monitoring report on manipulation and propaganda in the local media space. Note that the monitored media outlets were selected on the basis of audience, language, coverage and type of ownership criteria.
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