MMB: medias to accept premade videos
22/04/2011 15:15
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Four Media Monitoring Board members presented a proposition in their
weekly report for the Central Election Commission: according to them,
the Central Election Commission should oblige Radio Television operators
through a legal decision to preserve the balance between candidates of
municipalities and communes, especially for the capital.
More specifically, the broadcasting time of Rama and Basha should be equal.
But there is a problem: the candidate Basha not only does not notify the media for his scheduled activities, but he does not allow TV cameras to run when the journalists follow him. Some televisions; Top Channel, Vision Plus and Ora News published their decision of not accepting premade tapes by the electoral headquarters of the respective parties.
This decision, in respect of professionalism, was greeted by the OSCE office in Tirana and is being respected by DP and SP electoral headquarters, and also by the candidate Edi Rama. The solution that Top-Channel saw as most reasonable was to not broadcast images controlled by the candidate Basha and to compensate the broadcasting time with other activities of the Democratic Party. But the proposition of the four MMB members, as seen on CEC meetings, aims to oblige televisions to accept premade and edited video tapes of the parties.
This proposition not only infringes the rules of this profession, but also infringes the law. The Electoral Code, which provides the establishment and the functioning of the Media Monitoring Board itself, orders equal broadcasting time for both parties, not for both candidates. Article no. 81.1 says that the political broadcasting time should be equal for each political party that has been elected with more than 20% of the parliamentary seats.
For the parties that have received more than 20% of the parliamentary seats, the equal time has been implemented, which is twice the time of the other parliamentary parties. In other words, the Democratic and Socialist parties benefit equal broadcasting time, while Socialist Movement for Integration, the Republican Party, the Party of Justice, Integration and Unity and the United for the Human Rights Party benefit half the broadcasting time of major parties. This broadcasting time is the same for other parties that are not represented in the Parliament.
Discussing on equal broadcasting time between the candidates is against the Electoral Code. This was the stance that the other three CEC minority members held in the meeting. CEC will decide this afternoon on the MMB relation.
Top Channel
