Moldova: Media monitoring during elections

Source: Seenpm

In October, two media organizations that monitor the behavior of the media in elections – the Association of Independent Press (API)  and the Independent Journalism Center (IJC), a SEENPM member – made public four reports on the weekly monitoring of the media.

The first report  was launched on Wednesday, October 4, and included the results of monitoring for the previous two weeks of media coverage of the election period, September 15-29. According to the report, the majority of the 28 monitored media outlets (12 televisions, 12 online portals and 4 newspapers) in the pre-election period did barricade journalism rather than providing honest and ethical information to citizens.

The second report , presented on October 12, refers to the first week of the election campaign that started on September 29. It also noted deviations from the rules of journalistic ethics and from the provisions of the Broadcasting Code and the Elections Code.

According to the third report , referring to the second week of the campaign, some media outlets continued covering the election campaign in a tendentious, unbalanced and manipulating manner, and the Broadcasting Coordinating Council (BCC) failed to show a behavior fitting to the broadcasting regulator at this time.

The fourth report  noted slight improvement of situation in the third week of the campaign, but it drew attention to the fact that some media outlets continued being biased and failed to assume a neutral attitude to candidates in elections.

All the reports are accompanied by case studies. Media monitoring by the IJC and the API is conducted in the period of September 15 – November 13, 2016.

Monitoring is conducted as part of a project funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (USA) and the Council of Europe.