All slightly attentive viewers might have noted similar news reports of
the political leaders in their campaigns for all TV outlets.
The goal of the parties to present to the Albanians what they want, depriving them from the right to get informed from different views through the media, has now turned legal by a decision of the Central Election Commission.
According to the decision, the media should broadcast the tapes that parties have edited, and the media don’t have the right to refuse them.
For the Union of Journalists and the most renowned journalism professors, this decision is a political dictate to the media and censorship.
“This decision shows that reporters will be unable to report independently. There will be a selective reflection of the campaign”, declared the leader of the Journalists’ Union, Aleksander Cipa.
This decision is damaging, because citizens are interested to get informed by the media. The Central Election Commission might not be able to stop this, but they shouldn’t make it legal”, declared professor Mark Marku.
“The televisions are not media outlets, but video stores, with this dictate from the Central Election Commission. There is no objectivity or impartiality. It’s just a damage made to the media”, declares professor Iris Luarasi.
The Central Election Commission decision damages everyone, including the political class that installed this phenomenon. “The media loses its credibility with the citizens”, Cipa declared.
“This decision damages the media and the public”, Marku continues on the same line.
“Our audience is the one that loses more. Media independence has turned back and politics is damaged. Parties go on campaigns for rivalry, not to show who is better”, Luarasi underlined.
This decision falls against the law itself. After a long battle, in which Top Channel was one of the outlets that opposed this phenomenon in the elections of 2011, the Electoral College ruled in favor of the media, granting them the right to refuse all materials given by the parties.
But this decision was undone by the Central Election Commission decision. “The tapes were rejected by the media, but today this reality has deteriorated and they are imposing this”, Cipa underlines.
“This is a regress, because the campaign will be transmitted according to their desires”, Marku adds.
Based on the bitter experience of the elections of 2011, Top Cahnnel addressed an official letter to the parties, asking them a prior notification about their activities, and the readiness to cover these activities with its own resources, but no answer has been given even today.
The decision to transmit the same images also affects the competition between the media, making them unjustly equal, and imposing very low quality video materials.
While the Journalists’ Union asked all the media to unite and protest against this phenomenon, it remains to be seen if the fourth power will have any solidarity.
“It is shameful that in 2013, the media outlets are obliged to broadcast what the politicians want, without quality or interest in it”, Luarasi added.
Tapes, EC reviews CEC decision
The European Commission is reviewing the details of the Central Election Commission decision, comparing them with the standards and principles of free media. Top Channel reminds what the European Council stated in the progress-report of 2011 for the media that did not respect this “legal obligation” in the May 2011 campaign.
“The media offered a wide coverage of the May 2011 elections, and some company undertook one step towards independence by not broadcasting pre-edited tapes offered by the political parties”, the progress-report of two years ago stated.
Media monitoring board against the Central Election Commission
The three members of the Media Monitoring Board, Adrian Thano, Dardan Malaj and Andi Kananaj consider the Central Election Commission news as a surprise.
They declared that this decision is directly connected with the work and activity of the Media Monitoring Board, and it would be right to ask their opinion before passing the act.
“The decision damages the media freedom and independence, turning journalists in spectators of an already prepared show, edited by the political parties”.
The board also refused to make a technical evaluation of the parties’ video materials, a task that the Central Election Commission gave to them, since they don’t have the capacities for this.
According to the three members, these materials should be complementary but not obligatory.
Top Channel
