Election crunch time for Moldovan media

Russia’s interference in Moldova has been on the rise since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Despite its EU-aligned political leadership, Moldova’s ability to resist Moscow’s economic and political influence remains limited. Russia has intensified its efforts to divert the country from integrating with the EU since the accession negotiations began in December 2023.

In fact, Moldova has experienced significant foreign interference from Russia ahead of elections, with the preliminary findings and conclusions of the OSCE’s International Election Observation Mission, concluding that both votes were well managed and highlighted that “[c]ontestants campaigned freely in an environment characterised by concerns over illicit foreign interference and active disinformation efforts.”

For media this has meant a lot of work with factchecking.

On 20 October, Moldovans voted in the first round of the presidential election, resulting in a runoff between the incumbent, Maia Sandu, who sought re-election to continue the country’s pro-European course, and Alexandr Stoianoglo, whose candidacy is backed by the pro-Russia Socialist Party.

On the same day, a referendum was held where, by a razor-thin majority, voters chose to enshrine the country’s commitment to join the EU in its constitution.

On 3 November, Moldovans will return to the ballot boxes for the second round, deciding who will be the country’s next president.

Mariana Rata-Vremea co-founded TV8 back in 2017. Today, the 40-year old journalist hosts Cutia Neagra, an investigative TV show that tackles current issues in short, explanatory video formats called “Verde-n Ochi” (meaning “I’ll tell you directly”). Cutia Neagra, or The Black Box, is one of Moldova’s most popular shows.

For Mariana election night was a special opportunity to serve the audiences with quality reporting. While she was still recovering from 17 hours of live election day broadcasting, IMS caught up with Mariana for a talk about the challenges and opportunities for Moldova’s media and for TV8.

Please describe TV8 as you see it?

In Moldova, TV8 is the only independent TV channel broadcasting in both Russian and Romanian language. Twenty percent of what we produce ourselves is in Russian. If you include entertainment, 40 percent of all content is in Russian. Our movies and series are dubbed in Russian. The information war centres on people who speak Russian, but Russian-language content is mostly produced inside Russia and not independent. Moldova’s Romanian speaking audience also like Russian language content – especially entertainment content – and I see it as important to increase the number of independent channels who produce content in Russian to offer alternatives.

Which approach did TV8 take on covering the two elections?

TV8 decided to focus less on the presidential elections and more on the referendum. We also declared ourselves a channel based on European values such as rule of law and democratic values.

In the months leading up to elections we have set out to explain what an EU membership would mean for Moldovans. Those explainers have had a big audience. We were open about TV8 being in favour of EU, but never said go vote yes. Our news bulletins were neutral, and we tried to include all candidates in our investigations.

After the elections my reflection is this: our impact was big, but not big enough. Russian TV channels were more popular, and so were TikTok and other social media. As a nation we are vulnerable to propaganda – and we saw the impact in the results.

How did you handle disinformation?

We’ve been running a talk show about fake news, which for the past two months also included factchecking. We prepared the format, which has a satirical element to it, with some help from BBC. We take questions from callers and then do real time factchecking. One caller mentioned news about foreigners buying land, which was a popular fake news theme. Moldova has a lot of uncultivated land, and this topic really caused a stir. We tried to control the impact of this fake story that a lot of land will end up in the hands of foreigners if Moldova becomes an EU member by explaining the rules.

To me though it is not good to focus too much on debunking – it is a defensive position. We lead with stories about living standards in the EU, salaries in the EU, the fight against corruption, etc. We managed to introduce those themes as new narratives, and I can say this because Russian propaganda outlets started to “debunk” my video editorials. In one case, I used government data about funding received from the EU, and included facts about what Russia and EU had given in funding support to Moldova: €2 billion from the EU, but zero from Russia. Shortly after, other media started to share our story and it took off on social media.

This type of journalism comes with a price. I was called a prostitute, dishonest – and worse. It is very hard to fight against. I could go to the police, but the punishment and fines are not proportionate with the harm. Many of my colleagues are under a similar pressure. I am seasoned and prepared. But younger colleagues are less prepared, and they are afraid.

Paid supporters of a pro-Russian oligarch hiding in Russia even organised an in-person protest outside our office, but I’m not sure those demonstrating fully understood what they were protesting.

How do you see the role of dominant tech companies during election time?

They corrected their approach in the last week before election day. Telegram closed propaganda channels, but this did not mean that disinformation could not circulate on closed groups. Facebook, or Meta, made some changes and banned certain pages two weeks before. TikTok only reacted after two-to-three days for some of the most popular Russian influencers from Moldova had their channels banned. This was the first time dominant tech companies reacted in Moldova, but they should have reacted earlier!

Is there anything you will do differently before Parliamentary elections next year?

I’m not sure we will report very differently, but we need to think more about a debate format. The electoral debates in these presidential elections looked more like satirical shows. We have seen that when we invite four to five political candidates, only one or two appear. The Board of Elections said we have to do it, but the law doesn’t say that candidates have to show up. It is not fair. Media is also a business and we can’t spend time on something that’s going to fail.

In a report about media election coverage, IMS partner Centrul Pentru Jurnalism Independent (ICJ) monitored how Moldovan television media reported on the electoral process. Findings regarding TV8 state that: “TV8 covered the elections in the newscasts and, tangentially, in the programmes, providing direct access to the majority of candidates registered for the elections. Together with the political parties and state authorities, they were mostly mentioned in a neutral manner, without favouring or disfavouring any of them.”

Mariana Rata-Vremea is an investigative journalist, TV presenter and senior editor, responsible for editorial policy at TV8. She is the host of the political talk show Cutia Neagră and the director of the investigative show Cutia Neagră PLUS, both broadcast by TV8. She is also the president of the Board of Directors of the Center for Independent Journalism of Moldova.