Romanian Press Not Focused On Election Candidates’ Programs – OSCE Report

"Romania has a dynamic and pluralistic media environment, including public and private broadcasters and a variety of print media; the number, range and accessibility of media outlets provide voters with ample and diverse information about politics and elections, mainly through news and election-related debates," said the OSCE mission's interim report, published Monday.

According to the report, "TV is the main source of political information. Private Pro TV and Antena 1, and the first channel of public Romanian Television, TVR 1, are the most popular channels; however, private information channels Realitatea TV and Antena 3 usually increase their ratings during election campaigns. "

OSCE says further that "among the quality press, Adevarul currently enjoys the highest readership, but the paper decided not to cover the campaign in order to clearly distance itself from any of the candidates."

"Media coverage of the campaign is gathering momentum and focusing on the candidates of the main parliamentary parties. However, the media are focusing less on candidates' platforms than on the incumbent President and his management of the current political crisis as well as his talks with the International Monetary Fund," OSCE remarked in the report.

Also, the report notes that "the Presidential Election Law regulates access to the media during an election campaign. The National Audiovisual Council, an autonomous body responsible to the Parliament, is in charge of supervising and monitoring the broadcast media. As a result of the recent amendments to the Presidential Election Law, candidates are entitled to equal amounts of free airtime not only on public broadcast media, but also on private ones."

"Two of the candidates (Constantin Ninel Potirca and Gheorghe-Eduard Manole) filed complaints with the Constitutional Court with regard to their access to free airtime on public television and radio. In both cases, the Constitutional Court accepted the complaints and ordered corrective measures and airtime to be granted to the candidates," the interim report said.

"The OSCE/ODIHR LEOM started its media-monitoring activities on 29 October. It is monitoring the campaign coverage during the prime-time period (18:00-24:00 hours) on five television channels with nationwide coverage (public TVR 1, Pro TV, Realitatea TV, Antena 1, and Prima TV); it is also monitoring the campaign coverage of five newspapers (Cotidianul, Evenimentul Zilei, Jurnalul National, Gândul and România Libera)," the report concludes.

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