Media reporting has worsened on the fifth of the total of ten periods the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Service have for supervision until the scheduled elections on December 11. Halfway through the mandate of the ad hoc body, members have concluded that the media, rather from improving, reporting has worsened.
One good thing is that the members of the ad hoc body have received their back pay which was stranded between the Government – Ministry of Finance – AAVMU.
According to a member of the ad hoc body, Ljubomir Kostovski, he said he found it interesting that media reporting in the Albanian language was the closest to balanced reporting. He also stated that the Administrative Court declared itself incompetent in one of their proposals and dismissed their complaint.
“According to their reasoning, they declared themselves incompetent because they have no mandate before the election campaign. However, according to the Electoral Code, they must act upon complaints from the ad hoc body. There has been drastic changes in reporting in the last few days. Some television stations do not respect the recommendations of the Electoral Code and they practice propaganda in almost 100% of television news times”, says Kostovski.
The interim committee for monitoring the media with three votes “for” and two “against”, on Friday suggested initiating infringement proceedings against the television stations, “Sitel”, “Alfa” and “Nova.”
According to the Commission, the infringement proceedings against television stations, “Sitel” and “Nova” have been initiated because of Article 75, paragraph 1, which regulates the balance of coverage, while infringement proceedings initiated against television“Alfa” under Article 75, paragraph B of the law, which prohibits stories that can give the impression that the activities of the state authorities are actually party activities.
The two members who voted against the proposals (Cvetin Chilimanov and Sladjana Dimishkova) announced sustain of separate opinions and brought observations expressed in inconsistency with the law and the methodology of the Agency of the Media.
The interim commission is reviewing the reports by AVMU for notifications on 18 television and radio broadcasters every ten days.
AVMU will petition the misdemeanor department of the Basic Court Skopje 1, according to the Electoral code, it must be submitted within 48 hours.
According to the Law on Misdemeanors, there is no deadline for the courts to deadline, the only procedure available is the “fast-track” procedure.
