Russian TV Stations Accused of Manipulating Information about Moldova

The Russian TV channels Rossiya 24, Rossiya 1 and RTR have been showing manipulation in their reports on Moldova lately, says an article on HotNews. Irina Cebanov, the author of the article titled “Here is the PROOF of the information war started by the Kremlin against Moldova” (original in Romanian – “Iată DOVADA războiului informaţional pornit de Kremlin împotriva Republicii Moldova”), supports this opinion in the material about a feature report broadcast by the Rossiya 24 channel on 8 December.

The report showed footage of the Cojocaru family household in the Ciripcau village of the Floresti district. “Thus, to show the severity of the people’s problems, Russian journalists used various tricks when presenting tendentious data, including footage of buildings in a precarious state, but intended for … poultry. These buildings were presented by Russian journalists as the house where the Cojocaru family live, and the interviewees’ words were taken out of context,” Cebanov wrote in this article, mentioning that this wave of media manipulation intensified after Moldova signed the association agreement with the EU.
Contacted by Media Azi, the executive director of the Association of Independent Press (AIP) Petru Macovei said that “the problem consists in very ugly and crude manipulation by Russian TV channels, especially those financed from the Russian public budget, which gives the idea about the Russian State’s policy regarding Moldova.”

Macovei added that the information space in Moldova has been intoxicated with Russian televisions, such as Pervy Kanal, RTR or Rossiya 24, which “transmit erroneous information about the process of Moldova’s European integration, and the Russian ideological machine uses Russian journalists to intoxicate the information space of former Soviet republics.”

Petru Macovei believes that the Moldovan State should protect its citizens from such disinformation, and that the Broadcasting Coordinating Council should be notified so that, together with media NGOs, they develop some proposals in this regard.

“In the Baltic countries some Russian televisions have been banned altogether, because they used to broadcast erroneous information, and similar suggestions have been launched in Ukraine over the past weeks. I don’t think that this is exactly what we should do in Moldova, but still, the BCC, as guarantor of public interest, should do something,” added Macovei.

Petru Macovei did not exclude the possibility to submit a complaint to the Russian Press Council (in Russian – Общественная коллегия по жалобам на прессу) regarding manipulation of information by some Russian televisions.