site.bta Bulgarian Electronic Media Show High Degree of Professionalism during Election Campaign - Regulator

Bulgarian Electronic Media Show High Degree of Professionalism during Election Campaign - Regulator

Sofia, April 11 (BTA) - The Bulgarian electronic media showed a high degree of professionalism during the election campaign for the March 26 parliamentary vote, proved by the fact that not a single alert was made about hate speech or inciting hostility among people, Chairwoman of the Council for the Electronic Media (CEM) Maria Stoyanova said on Tuesday, presenting the results of the monitoring of the election campaign exercised by CEM.

Stoyanova said that when passions run high during a fierce political race the role of the media is critical.

Chairwoman of the Central Election Commission (CEC) Ivilina Alexieva said that the monitoring of the election campaign this time was with a broader scope and higher intensity.

The two officials noted the good cooperation between CEM and CEC.

One of the findings of the monitoring is that the media appearances of men running for Parliament were far greater than that of women contenders. Also, the electronic media should do more about people with hearing disabilities. Running captions of the TV content for the hard of hearing were available only on three TVs: the Bulgarian National Television, Europe Television, and Bulgaria 24, Stoyanova said.

The alerts about violations made to the CEM and referred to the CEC were considerably less than others.

Alexieva said that many media experts find the limitations about the announcement of exit polls results on polling day as obsolete and inadequate, but said that the provisions could be amended only by Parliament.

In the last election campaign, the politicians mostly used traditional media outlets such as radio and TV, and not the Internet. According to Stoyanova, the world wide web appears to be a natural environment for the spreading of fake news, alternative facts, downright lies and insults, which is not the case with the traditional outlets.

The big media that shape the public opinion attracted the highest shares of campaign appearances but did not have bias, Stoyanova said.