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The
European Institute for the Media (EIM) has concluded the second part
of the media monitoring mission of the 2000 Romanian presidential
elections. The project is part of a larger programme on media and
democratic institutions in central and eastern Europe, which is
supported by the European Commission.
The
media monitoring comprised qualitative and quantitative strands of
analysis and focused on the Romanian media’s compliance with the
national regulations as well as intenationally accepted standards of
the campaign coverage. The mission sought to establish whether the
political parties and presidential candidates standing election
enjoyed unhindered access to the mass media in the campaign period and
received fair coverage. The mission also investigated
whether the public could make an informed choice through the
media coverage of the election.
The
quantitative monitoring conducted between 4-7 December according
to EIM’s own methodology focused on three television
stations, three radio stations and four dailies in Bucharest as well
as five print media, one radio station and three local television
stations in Cluj. The qualitative analysis of political content of
broadcast and print media was conducted by Mrs. Benedicte Berner, who
acted as the EIM international expert. EIM project coordinators were
Ioana-Ruxandra Bachmayer (RO) and Dr. Elena Chernyavska (UA).
The
conclusions and findings of the mission remain the sole responsibility
of the EIM and can in no way be taken to reflect the views or policies
of the European Commission.
General Conclusions
As results of the first round of the elections were
officially published on December 1, the second round of the campaign
lasted only four days, this in contrast to the 45 days of the first
round campaign period.
The
media coverage changed radically between the two rounds. The main
reason was that the
results of the first round gave unexpectedly large support to C. Vadim
Tudor. Consequently, in the second round, commercial broadcasters
studiously avoided any coverage of C. Vadim Tudor in political
programmes. The print media now turned against this candidate and
directed fairly strong attacks against him.
Electronic
media.
·
During the second round, the national public television, TVR, and the commercial channels, PRO TV and Antena 1, in
their respective news programmes, gave a neutral or supportive
coverage to Ion Iliescu and to his party, PDSR,
while coverage given to C. Vadim Tudor and his party, PRM, was
exclusively negative. The tone and the content of the news broadcasts
respected the rules set by the NAC but still, in comparison with the
first round, adhered to a less rigorous neutrality, to the detriment
of C. Vadim Tudor and his party.
·
While both public television and the two major
commercial channels, Pro TV
and Antena 1, had organised
a series of election programmes during the first campaign
period, the second round was characterized by surprisingly little
electoral activity in the electronic media.
Public
television, TVR, bound by
its obligations under the electoral provisions to provide free air
time to the candidates devoted one hour of special election
programmes to each candidate. According to the rules set by the
national audiovisual council (NAC), TVR
was not allowed to other election programming. The major
private stations refrained from broadcasting any electoral
programmes during the second round. (A smaller commercial TV, Tele
7 abc, did however broadcast a two hours programme featuring Ion
Iliescu and three putative
members of his future government).
·
Various explanations were given to the EIM team as to this policy of
the private TV stations. One was that Ion Iliescu did not wish to
participate in any debates with his opponent. Fear of promoting C.
Vadim Tudor was presumably another reason. It was generally believed
that C. Vadim Tudor´s use of the electronic media during the
first round had largely contributed to his successful score (28,33%).
Before the beginning of the campaign, C. Vadim Tudor, had rarely been
featured on television.
·
While the National Audiovisual Council (NAC) had established strict
rules for the campaign coverage of the electronic media, these
regulations still left enough scope for the commercial stations
to organise, in the absence of real debates, political analysis
programmes. However, during the second round, the private
electronic media failed to offer any analysis of the most important
and topical political, economic and social issues. Public television
kept to a rather tedious agenda in its special electoral programmes.
·Thus
the rules established by the NAC, the extremely restrictive
interpretation of these rules by the broadcasters, the unwillingness
of one of the candidates to participate in debates, the politically
motivated decision of the private stations, all those factors combined
to limit drastically the electronic media coverage of the second round
and thus the information given to the electorate.
Print
media.
·
As in the first round, the print media operated practically
unrestricted by any campaign coverage regulations.
·
Similarly to what was the case in the first round, their degree of
partisan involvement was evident. However, the strategy of the print
media changed radically between the two rounds. During the first round
newspapers held a variety of political positions and did not devote
specific attention to C. Vadim Tudor, mostly treating him in a mocking
and ironic manner. The reason was presumably that they did not see him
as a realistic contender for the second round. In contrast, during the
second round, the monitored print media, with the exception of Journalul
National joined in one, almost
unanimous, chorus of negative reporting and
campaigning, strongly and emotionally criticizing C. Vadim Tudor and
his party. Thus, the print media held a clear position, supporting
explicitly or implicitly Ion Iliescu, while presenting the electoral
situation as a combat
between democracy and moderation versus extremism and authoritarian
tendencies.
· Recurrent themes in the print media thus became:
the danger of extremism and dictatorship, the anti-european policies
of C. Vadim Tudor, his links with the previous security police, the
"Securitate" , references to the fact that several, newly
elected, members of his party were
under legal investigation. Wide coverage was given to the
various rallies organized in Bucharest against extremism. However, the
print media provided only limited
analysis of the political, social and cultural background to
the ideas presented by the candidate C. Vadim Tudor and did not
seriously discuss the reasons behind his electoral success in the
first round.
·
In contrast to the first round when a very large amount of political
advertising was carried by the print media, reflecting the
economic importance of the campaign, the second round was
characterised by relatively little political advertising.
·
No political advertising was broadcast nor printed after the electoral
silence which came into force 48 hours before election day. However,
many articles related to the elections were still published in the
newspapers on the eve of the elections.
Media
strategy of the two candidates.
The
two candidates, Ion Iliescu and C. Vadim Tudor, had different
approaches towards the media.
Ion
Iliescu refused to confront his opponent in debates, making rather
traditional and passive appearances on the screen. In a fairly reserved and non-polemical manner, "statesman-like",
he raised some of the important issues for the voters e.g.
corruption, economic
backwardness, often referring to the past and his
presidency between 1990 and 1996.
C.
Vadim Tudor, in contrast, made a very aggressive use of the electronic
media, exploiting them not for dialogue, but for attacking other
candidates, making a show of his television appearances, ignoring
calls to moderate his violent criticism of his opponents. At the same
time C. Vadim Tudor clearly addressed the main concerns of the
electorate, corruption, poverty, the dissolution of the state´s
authority, the building of a new and strong Romania, based on
traditional values. These were clear and simple messages targeted to
an impoverished, largely disillusioned and frustrated population. His
answers to the problems posed were vague and general: „I am young“
(Iliescu being 71), „I am committed“, „I was never part of the
corruption of the past“ (a reference to the Iliescu presidency
90-96).
Coverage
of the campaign and quantitative analysis.
Electronic
media.
Television.
National public
television, TVR
The first and second channels of the public
television, TVR, were
involved in the campaign coverage to meet their obligations under the
electoral provisions. Channel
1 has the national coverage, thereby being the main source of
information for the rural population which is hardly reached by the
press; channel 2 reaches about 32% of the population, mainly in urban
areas.
In
the news programmes, if equal time was allocated to the two
candidates in terms of appearances (ap. 600 seconds), the time
allocated to their respective parties, PDSR (Ion Iliescu) and PRM (C.Vadim
Tudor) varied in the proportion of two to one, respectively 1578 and
785 seconds.
It
could also be noted that the candidate Ion Iliescu and his party
benefited from presentations in an exclusively neutral or
positive context (1400 sec.) while C. Vadim Tudor and his party were
featured only in a negative context (785 sec.). (See graphs attached)
The
special electoral programmes were, as stipulated in the rules,
significantly reduced in terms of duration. TVR
gave thus one hour to each candidate in special election
programmes.
On
December 6, C. Vadim Tudor addressed the audience by reading a speech.
The journalist hosting the programme was unable to interrupt the
monologue. His message essentially contained fierce attacks against
his opponent, Ion Iliescu, also referring to the execution of the
former dictator Ceausescu and his wife, killed, reportedly on the
order of Ion Iliescu, in a gruesome manner.
On
December 7, TVR devoted one
hour to Ion Iliescu. Questions from thirteen journalists had been
previously recorded and were answered by the candidate during the
programme.
PRO TV
Interestingly,
PRO TV led a very active
anti-extremism campaign before the official beginning of the second
round, broadcasting a talk show, „The Vadim Era“
and an entertainment show “Chestiunea Zilei” – „the
Matter of the Day“ – related to this subject. It also broadcast
feature films relevant to the topic („1984” by Orwell).
Following
the strong critics voiced against him in „The Vadim Era“ show, C.
Vadim Tudor fiercely attacked journalists in a press conference on the
first day of the second round campaign. PRO
TV was the only television station to broadcast
four minutes covering the press conference.
During the second round, the
coverage in PRO TV news
programmes of the candidates’ activities and of their respective
parties was similar to the one on TVR.
However, PRO TV granted more air time than TVR to negative
references of C. Vadim Tudor ( 1929 sec.) and his party (1956 sec.),
while there were only 100 sec. neutral references and none positive.
Fewer references were made to Ion
Iliescu, and when so, only neutral or positive ones.
Antena
1
As
in the two other monitored television stations, C.Vadim Tudor and his
party were presented in the news in a more negative context than Ion
Iliescu and his party: 1140 negative references for PRM while only 327
negative references for PDSR; 943 negative references for C.Vadim
Tudor and none for Ion Iliescu.
It
should be noted that in the news programmes of the last day of the
second round campaign, all three monitored stations made public the
results of five different polls, all giving the candidate Ion Iliescu
some 70% of the votes in the final run.
Radio.
ROMANIA
ACTUALITATI
has a nationwide programme and 8 regional programmes. It
broadcast only 24 news items on the two presidential candidates and
their parties.
In
the news,
Ion Iliescu and the PDSR received a more positive coverage than his
opponent: (PRM – 515” negative references, as compared to 0” for
PDSR; C.Vadim Tudor – 75” negative references, as compared to 0”
for Ion Iliescu).
In
other programmes, the station remained neutral as required in the
regulations. The two candidates benefited twice from half an hour each
of electoral programmes on an rotative basis.
EUROPA
FM
has a national licence but covers mainly urban areas. It also
broadcast 24 news items on PRM – C.Vadim Tudor and PDSR - Ion
Iliescu.
In
the news, PRM and its candidate C. Vadim Tudor were presented more
frequently and exclusively in a negative context than the PDSR and the
candidate Ion Iliescu (CV
Tudor 260”; Ion Iliescu 100”).
Other
political programmes were neutral. On Thursday December 7, Europa FM broadcast, just like the BBC, the appeal by the students
of the University of Bucharest against extremism.
BBC
– Romania section: this
radio station broadcast more news items (42) than any of the other
monitored radio. Both parties and their candidates benefited from a
fairly equal amount of airtime and there were no significant
differences, in contrast to other radio stations, between the two
candidatesIon Iliescu - PDSR
and C.Vadim Tudor - PRM in terms of context of presentation. However,
three times more air time was devoted to
negative presentations of
PRM and its
candidate, C. Vadim Tudor, compared to PDSR and its candidate, Ion Iliescu (CV Tudor 2300”
negatively tendentious presentation, Ion Iliescu 750”).
During
the second round, the station sent a very clear message: “the future
president of Romania will be an ex-communist or an extremist”, while
stressing the dangers of extremism.
Print
media.
Of
the four monitored newspapers, Ziua
and Evenimentul Zilei clearly led a negative campaign against
C.Vadim Tudor and his party. During
the four days of the second round, negative articles on this candidate
appeared every day on the front page and these newspapers were the
most articulate and the strongest critics in the anti-extremism
campaign.
The
two papers had a common editorial policy: many articles referred to
negative events related to C.Vadim Tudor and PRM and half of these
articles also had negative commentaries.
Adevarul,
though it devoted less coverage to electoral issues than the two
newspapers mentioned above, also led a negative campaign against
C.Vadim Tudor and his party. Both context ( PRM – 14/2672 sqcm while
PDSR - / 1601sqcm) and style of presentations
(C.V.Tudor:
8/2357 sqcm while I.Iliescu: 4/1325 sqcm) of C.Vadim Tudor and PRM
were negative.
Jurnalul
National
had a different editorial policy from the other newspapers
monitored. First it did not engage in very active campaigning and it
presented the two candidates and their respective parties in a
relatively balanced way. However, while more neutral, the newspaper
still favoured Iliescu who received more coverage than his opponent.
Out of six articles, two presented him in a positive context while the
others were neutral. Two out of five articles on PRM and C.Vadim Tudor
were negative and none positive.
Jurnalul
National
was the only newspaper which published one entire page of political
advertising for C. Vadim Tudor.
Recommendations.
·
Regulations could leave broadcasters more leeway in establishing the
schedule and the format of special election programming.
·
Voters should go to the polls as well informed as possible. Therefore
a broader panoply of politically-related programmes could be offered.
First, broadcast media should try to provide the public with
programmes addressing present political and social topics in the
country, moving away from the concept of political entertainment to a
format giving more space to in-depth analysis. Second,
election-related material should not be limited to special electoral
programmes. Third, relevant information could also be provided in
other types of programmes,including news programmes which should aim
at reasonable objectivity in its coverage.
·
The interests of the readers of the print media would be better served
by more comprehensive
analysis of the various political options.
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