The media outlets of Moldova got involved in the struggle between election contenders instead of impartially and equitably covering the election campaign, shows the sixth report on the monitoring of the mass media in the election campaign prior to the November 30 elections, which was presented in a news conference at IPN. The report was produced by the Association of Independent Press (API), the Association of Electronic Press (APEL) and the Independent Journalism Center (CJI) within the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections.

“Last week as well showed that even if the struggle in an election campaign must be between election runners or their platforms and offers, the journalist also became involved in it,” said the APEL executive director Ion Bunduchi. “Regrettably, we have few examples of good practices in covering this election campaign.”

The journalists and editorial staffs positioned themselves on one side of the imaginary barricade in this political war,” said the API executive director Petru Macovei. He noted that the monitored newspapers ignored almost fully the electoral education of voters and the principle of balanced presentation of conflict-centered subjects, with more than half of the electoral materials being biased.

As in the previous reports, the worst situation was witnessed at the newspaper “Nezavisimaya Moldova”, which favored massively the PCRM and presented the PLDM, PDM, PL and slightly the PSRM and PPP in a negative light. “National” disadvantaged clearly the PPP and supported the PLDM. “Panorama” favored for the first time the Party “Patria – Vozrojdenie” and disadvantaged the PDM. “Moldova Suverana” favored the PLDM and put the PPP and PSRM in an unfavorable light. “Timpul” favored the PL and presented the PCRM, PSRM and PPP in a negative context. “Jurnal de Chisinau” favored nobody, but disadvantaged the PSRM and PPP. “Komsomolskaya Pravda v Moldove” presented all the contenders neutrally, while “Vesti Gagauzii” practically didn’t cover the campaign of the election runners.

As regards TV channels, the quartet Publika TV, Prime TV, Canal 2, and Canal 3 continued to favor massively the PDM, presenting simultaneously the PPP and PSRM in a negative light. Accent TV and Jurnal TV disfavored massively the PDM, while TV7 and N4 favored the PLDM. Moldova 1 favored slightly the PDM and PLDM and disfavored the PPP. Pro TV covered the election campaign in an equitable way.

CJI director Nadine Gogu said the online portals also continued to cover the election campaign inequitably. Deschide.md favored slightly the PL, moldova.org – the PLR and PDM, while noi.md – the PCRM. noi.md also disfavored the PPP and PSRM to a certain extent. jurnal.md favored the PLR and independent candidate Oleg Cernei, disadvantaging massively the PDM and less the PPP, PLDM, and PCRM. Newsmaker.md often favored the PPP, omg.md favored the PPP and disfavored the PDM, PLDM and rarer the PCRM, while politik.md favored the PPP, PSRM and PPRM.

The radio stations covered the election campaign in a different way. Radio Moldova and Vocea Basarabiei had electoral news, electoral publicity, educative videos and debates, while Radio Noroc and Radio Plai broadcast only electoral publicity and educative videos. Vocea Basarabiei was the only radio station that favored a contender – the PLDM. Radio Moldova and Russkoie Radio supported no one, while Radio Plai and Radio Noroc didn’t have enough electoral materials for assessing their behavior.

The authors of the monitoring report expressed their disappointment with the performance of the media outlets and with the lack of harsh penalties on the part of the Broadcasting Coordination Council for the media outlets that committed violations like those stipulated in the report. Some of the broadcasters with national coverage, such as Prime TV, staged electoral debates only in the first part of the election campaign, not throughout the campaign, and held no debate during the last week before the elections, as the legislation provides. A solution proposed by the authors is to ban the media outlets that do not stage electoral debates from broadcasting electoral publicity.

The monitoring was performed within a project financed by the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy, the U.S. Embassy in Moldova and East-Europe Foundation with the funds allocated by the Government of Sweden through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark (DANIDA).