Media Continue Manipulating in the Election Campaign, and the BCC Behavior Leaves Much To Be Desired

The Independent Journalism Center (IJC) and the Association of Independent Press (AIP) presented on Wednesday, October 19, the third report on monitoring the media in the election campaign. According to its authors, some media outlets continue doing tendentious, unbalanced and manipulating coverage of the campaign, and the Broadcasting Coordinating Council (BCC) does not act as a broadcasting regulator should at such a time.

Televisions aired 761 materials of direct or indirect electoral nature, and their total amount was about 55 hours. The 12 monitored web portals published a total of 487 articles, the four newspapers – 42 materials.

The most favored candidates, from the perspective of frequency and duration of appearances and of the positive context, were Marian Lupu and Igor Dodon, who were favored (198 and 86 times, accordingly) more than disfavored (95 and 39 times, accordingly). Andrei Nastase and Maia Sandu were disfavored (83 and 52 times, accordingly) more than favored (32 and 26 times, accordingly).

“We noted that candidates didn’t have equal access to the media to present their electoral offers, and voters thus were deprived of information about the electoral process. We also noted on many televisions manipulation with information by omission, selection of topics for coverage and distortion of facts,” said Nadine Gogu, Executive Director of the IJC.

The results of the report show that private channels with national coverage Prime TV, Canal 2, Canal 3 and Publika TV continued massively promoting Marian Lupu and disfavoring Andrei Nastase.

Jurnal TV, channel with regional coverage, massively favored Andrei Nastase and disfavored Marian Lupu.

NTV Moldova and Accent TV favored mostly Igor Dodon. NTV Moldova showed slight disfavoring of Marian Lupu, and on Accent TV this tendency was more evident.

Public broadcaster Moldova 1, private channels Realitatea TV, Pro TV Chisinau, TV 7 and N4 had a relatively balanced behavior: no tendencies of clear favoring or disfavoring of candidates were noted.

As for news portals, in the reporting week the most favored candidate, in terms of frequency of appearances and positive context, was Andrei Nastase, who was favored more often than disfavored. Marian Lupu was the candidate most often presented in disfavoring contexts, while Igor Dodon, Maia Sandu and Mihai Ghimpu were disfavored more than favored. “Journalists rarely offer the right to reply to the people referred to in news. There are only several portals that provide balanced and complex information, while the majority have editorial policies focused on discrediting certain candidates,” said Petru Macovei, Executive Director of the AIP.

Among portals and newspapers, Jurnal.md directly and indirectly favored Andrei Nastase and disfavored Marian Lupu. Moldova24.info disfavored the opponents of the current government.

Today.md continued clearly disfavoring Andrei Nastase in all materials he was referred to. Candidate Maia Sandu was also mostly disfavored. On the contrary, Marian Lupu is favored, directly and indirectly.

Ziarulnational.md published a lot of news stories presenting candidates Igor Dodon and Marian Lupu in negative or mostly negative contexts. At the same time, the election campaign of Mihai Ghimpu was intensely covered, and he was favored by the editorial office. Candidate Andrei Nastase was also favored more than disfavored this week.

Sputnik.md massively disfavored candidate Mihai Ghimpu in all materials that referred to him, by means of pamphlets and ironic texts. At the same, candidates Maia Sandu and Andrei Nastase are presented in mostly negative contexts. Marian Lupu was disfavored especially by critical materials about the current government.

Agora.md, Gagauzinfo.md, Unimedia.info, Deschide.md, Newsmaker.md, Realitatea.md and Noi.md published generally neutral and relatively balanced news, and their authors were not biased.

“KP v Moldove” newspaper disfavored Mihai Ghimpu; “Panorama” newspaper disfavored both the current government and all previous governments; “Săptămâna” newspaper published in the reporting period a large interview (one newspaper page) with independent candidate Silvia Radu, which was clearly electoral, but not marked as such, thus being hidden electoral advertising; “Timpul” newspaper was relatively balanced, candidates were treated differently – sometimes favored, other times disfavored.

At the conference launching the results of the monitoring report, the two media organizations made a joint declaration about the activity of the Broadcasting Coordinating Council during this electoral campaign, which, according to them, “is not anywhere near expectations.” The fact that it monitors strictly the election campaign, and especially that it presents a report in ten days, shows that the BCC “removes itself from the regulation of broadcasting in Moldova and acts like a non-governmental association rather than like a an authority established by law and has legal levers to influence the situation in domestic broadcasting. We ask the BCC to monitor broadcasters in the election campaign at least weekly and to apply sanctions,” said the executive directors of the two media organizations.