BAJ prepared a report on coverage of the president elections 2015 in Belarusan media

The report of the Monitoring Group of the Belarusian Association of Journalists summarizes the findings of the monitoring for a time span of two weeks – from 17 to 31 August, 2015.

1. Introduction

The report summarises the findings of the monitoring for a time span of two weeks – from 17 to 31 August, 2015. According to the schedule of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Belarus, it is a time when prospective presidential hopefuls should collect 100,000 voters’ signatures endorsing their nomination and submit them to the CEC, while the CEC should check the validity of the signatures, etc.

The monitoring aims to raise the journalist community’s and voters’ awareness of:

-- the importance of comprehensive and balanced coverage of the election;

-- the code of ethics in journalism and international standards that are indispensable for covering elections;

--and journalists’ duty to give voters undistorted, impartial and complete information about the electoral campaign, the candidates’ agendas and their supporters’ and opponents’ opinions.

The monitoring focuses on media items that are about the electoral campaign and prospective presidential candidates (to be referred to as ‘candidates’ from the moment of their formal registration onwards). The items are analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. We also report instances of partial, incomprehensive or biased coverage that does not meet professional standards, breaches ethics in journalism, and departure from internationally accepted standards of reporting on elections.

2. Summary

•  The monitored state-owned electronic media gave more attention to the election than they did in 2010. This is evident from the proportion of air time they allocated to the election coverage as compared to weather and sport. At the same stage in the run-up to the 2010 presidential election, it had received twice or thrice less coverage than weather, whereas this time their shares became more or less equal. The proportion of air time given to the election coverage in comparison to sport went up, too.
•  At the same time, the electronic and printed state-owned media did not bring into the spotlight the process of collecting signatures to endorse the prospective candidates through special reports or other items. The information about the potential nominees’ teams was scarce.
•  Just like in the previous election, it was only one presidential hopeful – namely the incumbent – who dominated the state-owned media. More often than not they featured him outside the context of him performing his duties. The other prospective candidates were either mentioned in passing or altogether ignored.
•  The state-owned media gave rather extensive coverage of the CEC, regional election commissions and local authorities organising the election process. The political parties that are participating in the election did not receive so much attention.
• At this stage, quite a lot of air time and space in the printed media was given to both the CIS and OSCE/ODIHR observers.
•  The state-owned media presented some pro-governmental organisations and their activities in a positive light. At the same time, they ignored independent civil society organisations.
•  The state-owned media also demonstrated instances of imbalanced election coverage that clearly favored one actor.
•  The independent media focused their attention on the political actors, featuring most prominently the prospective presidential hopefuls.
•  Their assessments of the political actors ranged from neutral to positive and negative. At the same time, they did not show any bias or partiality.

All the conclusions are substantiated by the quantitative data and content analysis of the monitored media, as well as some definite statements that were made in the media and are cited below.

You can read the whole report here.

Belarusian Association of Journalists