Skopje, 11.09.2017 – The report on monitoring media coverage of the elections in the period from 27 August until 5 September 2017, conducted by the Agency for Audio ad Audiovisual Media Services, indicates that the broadcasters have continued to follow the already established editorial policies in their reporting
.
Just as before, the Government is the most present quantitatively, through reports on both its internal- and its external-political activities, spotlighting in particular the visit by the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Greece, Nikos Kotzias, to the Republic of Macedonia.
Also continuing is the practice where reporting on the communication between the government and the opposition not rarely contains “pseudo-events” which are then transferred into “pseudo-news”, and where some of the television and radio stations have been keeping their distance from this pattern, whereas others have continued to reflect it.
The way that Alfa TV and Nova TV have been reporting manifests disrespect for the professional principle of ensuring equal treatment of diverse viewpoints.
In addition, the monitoring in this period revealed that Nova TV had violated three other principles. In its edition of the “Open Studio” show titled “Gay Marriages: Yes or No”, which was aired on 10 August 2017, this TV acted contrary to the principle of equal human rights and freedoms on all grounds and the principle of objective and unbiased portrayal of events. In its news item titled “Indictment against the gynecologist who lied to a patient that she was pregnant”, aired on 31 August 2017, it violated the principle of presumption of innocence.
The third ten-day media coverage monitoring report, and the two reports on Nova TV, are available at the links below:
Report on the ad hoc supervision over NOVA TV’s programming service of 10 August 2017
Report on the ad hoc supervision over NOVA TV’s programming service of 31