Coverage of the 2019 Parliamentary Elections in Belarusian Media Final report

Belarusian Association of Journalists

Coverage of the 2019 Parliamentary Elections in Belarusian Media

Final report

(16 Sep­tem­ber — 26 Novem­ber 2019)

The report sum­maris­es the find­ings of the mon­i­tor­ing of the 2019 par­lia­men­tary elec­tion cov­er­age in Belaru­sian media.

Con­tents

1. Intro­duc­tion
2. Key Find­ings
3. Facts and Data
   1. State-run Media
   2. Direct Access
   3. Inde­pen­dent Media
4. Assess­ments of the Elec­tion
5. Con­clu­sions
6. 1. Charts
7. 2. Mon­i­tor­ing Method­ol­o­gy

1. Introduction

The mon­i­tor­ing aimed:

– to draw jour­nal­ists’ atten­tion to their duty to pro­vide unbi­ased and com­pre­hen­sive infor­ma­tion about the elec­tion process, can­di­dates’ agen­das, as well as to present their sup­port­ers’ and oppo­nents’ opin­ions;

– to find out to what extent media con­tri­bu­tions met the inter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised prin­ci­ples and stan­dards of elec­tion cov­er­age and ethics in jour­nal­ism;

– and to reveal the over­all nature of elec­tion cov­er­age, assess­ing the roles played by state-run and inde­pen­dent media in this process, on the basis of qual­i­ta­tive and quan­ti­ta­tive analy­sis.

The mon­i­tor­ing cov­ered four­teen Belaru­sian media, both state-run and inde­pen­dent, elec­tron­ic and print­ed, nation­wide and region­al.

The mon­i­tor­ing was con­duct­ed by the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ).

2. Key Findings

Through­out the elec­tion, the state-run media focused their atten­tion main­ly on how the CEC and oth­er elec­tion com­mis­sions were work­ing and how the elec­tion process was being organ­ised. These media’s pri­or­i­ties includ­ed the arrival of observers, the coun­try leader’s opin­ions about the future com­po­si­tion of par­lia­ment, and the role the exec­u­tive played in the cam­paign. Dur­ing the final week of cam­paign­ing, the state-run media active­ly pro­mot­ed ear­ly vot­ing.

As the state-run media put the spot­light on elec­tion tech­ni­cal­i­ties, which were essen­tial­ly insignif­i­cant, this pre­vent­ed the elec­torate from form­ing an opin­ion about the nation’s most burn­ing prob­lems, dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal forces’ stand­ing and their visions of pos­si­ble solu­tions to these prob­lems.

The state-run media did not offer a wide range of opin­ions, pre­sent­ing one-sided infor­ma­tion. Reporters only gave voice to the offi­cial stance, which they sided with. Guest experts’ opin­ions ignored crit­i­cisms of the cur­rent regime and alter­na­tive views held by vot­ers and gov­ern­ment oppo­nents.

A num­ber of state-run out­lets were oblig­ed to pro­vide equal media access to all can­di­dates. How­ev­er, their media appear­ances were not pub­li­cised in advance. TV and radio guides did not inform vot­ers on the exact date and time when their par­lia­men­tary hope­fuls were to go on air.

Belarus 3 TV sta­tion, which reserved air­time for most of the can­di­dates, does not stand very high in media rat­ings. It is a Belaru­sian ver­sion of a TV sta­tion fea­tur­ing cul­ture, whose audi­ence is not focused on pol­i­tics. The par­lia­men­tary hope­fuls’ radio address­es were broad­cast at off-peak slots, from 7.00 a.m. to 7.30 a.m., when a vast major­i­ty of vot­ers were prepar­ing to go to work or com­mut­ing.

Thus, it was evi­dent that the state-run media tend­ed to mar­gin­alise key actors of the par­lia­men­tary elec­tion, such as polit­i­cal par­ties and can­di­dates. Draw­ing atten­tion to back­ground tech­ni­cal details did not encour­age the vot­ers to take an active part in the elec­tion.

By con­trast, the inde­pen­dent media pub­lished a much wider spec­trum of opin­ions and made a num­ber of par­lia­men­tary hope­fuls more recog­nis­able when cam­paign­ing was at its peak. How­ev­er, the inde­pen­dent media could not mean­ing­ful­ly com­pete with their state-oper­at­ed coun­ter­parts in elec­tion cov­er­age.

The state-run and inde­pen­dent media notice­ably dif­fered in their assess­ments of the elec­tion fol­low­ing the vot­ing day.

3. Facts and Data

3.1 State-run media

Through­out the elec­tion process, elec­tion-relat­ed issues were not on the list of pri­or­i­ties. Except for the week in the run-up to the polling day on 17 Novem­ber 2019, the share of elec­tion cov­er­age in the elec­tron­ic state-run media con­sid­er­ably lagged behind such top­ics as sport and weath­er fore­cast.

For exam­ple, the final quan­ti­ta­tive data show that the Panara­ma news pro­gramme on Belarus 1 TV sta­tion gave the elec­tion 4% of its total air time, while weath­er account­ed for 7% and sport made up 11%. The Nashi Novosti on ONT allot­ted to the elec­tion, weath­er, and sport 4%, 7% and 7% of the air time, respec­tive­ly. The final fig­ures for the Radyjo­fakt on the First Nation­al Chan­nel of the Belaru­sian Radio are as fol­lows: elec­tion cov­er­age – 5%, weath­er – 6%, and sport – 8.5%.

Dur­ing the week in the run-up to the elec­tion these media dra­mat­i­cal­ly increased their elec­tion cov­er­age. For exam­ple, it rose to 13% in the Radi­jo­fakt in the final week. How­ev­er, this did not change the gen­er­al pic­ture, as elec­tion-relat­ed issues still did not come top.

The notice­able increase in cov­er­age can be attrib­uted to the begin­ning of ear­ly vot­ing, when the state-run media active­ly urged the elec­torate to go to the polls. They pushed vot­ers to fol­low the exam­ple of Belaru­sian sports and enter­tain­ment celebri­ties who had vot­ed ear­ly.

The rise in elec­tion cov­er­age in the run-up to the elec­tion clear­ly did not include polit­i­cal par­ties, par­lia­men­tary hope­fuls and their address­es to vot­ers. The key actors were the elec­torate, elec­tion com­mis­sions, local author­i­ties and pro-gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tions, such as the Belarus Trade Unions Fed­er­a­tion (BTUF) and the Belaru­sian Nation­al Youth Union (BNYU), which had their can­di­dates stand­ing for par­lia­ment and were par­tic­i­pat­ing in elec­tion obser­va­tion.

It is impor­tant that the elec­torate was main­ly pre­sent­ed in a deper­son­alised man­ner, i.e. instead of giv­ing voice to vot­ers them­selves, reporters described them indi­rect­ly. For exam­ple, in the Naviny rehi­jona, broad­cast by Mahilioŭ TV and Radio Com­pa­ny, real vot­ers had voice for 43 sec only, while the over­all air­time giv­en to them made up 6 min 45 sec.

If we look at the aggre­gat­ed mon­i­tor­ing data, it becomes evi­dent that anony­mous and deper­son­alised pre­sen­ta­tion of the elec­torate in the elec­tron­ic media typ­i­cal­ly exceed­ed voic­es of real vot­ers twofold, three­fold or even more.

For many vot­ers, the par­lia­men­tary elec­tion had noth­ing to do with a polit­i­cal cam­paign. This was evi­dent, among oth­er things, from inter­views with some of them. ‘I vot­ed for a man who projects a very pos­i­tive image, in my opin­ion. I like his pro­fes­sion and his age,’ said an inter­vie­wee in the Panara­ma news on Belarus 1 on 15 Novem­ber 2019. Any informed polit­i­cal choice was cer­tain­ly out of the ques­tion.

A tell­tale sign: a very short time before ear­ly vot­ing began, the state-run media quite active­ly dis­cussed the pro­file of a would-be par­lia­men­tar­i­an.

A trail­er for a report that went on air in Radyjo­fakt on 6 Novem­ber said, ‘The Youth Union encour­ages vot­ers to speak about the most impor­tant fea­tures in the people’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive.’ These impor­tant fea­tures includ­ed the ones men­tioned by the vot­er who is quot­ed above.

On 23 Octo­ber the host of Obyek­tivNo, a new project launched by ONT, asked the audi­ence, ‘Have you decid­ed on the traits a can­di­date should pos­sess so that you can cast your bal­lot for him?’

It is evi­dent that the ques­tion divert­ed the focus from polit­i­cal agen­das and ideas to per­son­al­i­ty traits.

The mon­i­tor­ing data shows that the state-run elec­tron­ic and print media adhered to their tra­di­tion­al mod­el of elec­tion cov­er­age. In par­tic­u­lar, they depoliti­cised the elec­tion, mar­gin­alised its key actors, did not cov­er any com­pe­ti­tion of polit­i­cal ideas or alter­na­tives, pre­sent­ed polit­i­cal actors anony­mous­ly, and offered one-sided cov­er­age of the elec­tion, favour­ing pro-gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tions, such as the BNYU, the BTUF and the Belaya Rus’ (White Rus’) with their can­di­dates.

The ten­den­cy towards depoliti­cis­ing the elec­tion and push­ing its key actors in the back­ground was clear­ly vis­i­ble, among oth­er things, dur­ing the peak of cam­paign­ing, when can­di­dates appeared on air.

3.2 Direct Access

Can­di­dates’ media appear­ances and debates are undoubt­ed­ly the core of cam­paign­ing. A num­ber of state-run out­lets were oblig­ed to pro­vide equal media access to all can­di­dates.

Each can­di­date had 5 min­utes to address their vot­ers. The media appear­ances were broad­cast on TV at prime time, from 7.00 p.m. to 8.40 p.m., with the excep­tion of 22 and 29 Octo­ber, when elec­tion cov­er­age on Belarus 3 was lim­it­ed to thir­ty min­utes, from 7.00 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. The same TV sta­tion also broad­cast debates at the same time. Each candidate’s active con­tri­bu­tion to the debates could not exceed 5 min­utes. In addi­tion, they could have their agen­das print­ed in state-run papers.

Tech­ni­cal­ly, the state-run media played a role in cam­paign­ing.

How­ev­er, they actu­al­ly nev­er focused on com­pet­ing ideas or made an effort to dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion about agen­das of the can­di­dates or polit­i­cal par­ties stand­ing for par­lia­ment. More­over, they were instru­men­tal in restrict­ing and even block­ing polit­i­cal activ­i­ties. This claim is sub­stan­ti­at­ed by the fol­low­ing facts:

– the can­di­dates’ appear­ances on TV and the radio were not uploaded to the TV and radio sta­tions’ web­sites or YouTube chan­nels, in con­trast with many oth­er items;

– TV and radio guides did not give the can­di­dates’ names or exact times of their address­es to vot­ers. The Belarus 3 TV guide said noth­ing more than ‘The 2019 par­lia­men­tary elec­tion’. The same was true about the debates. The STV TV guide sim­ply said, ‘The 2019 par­lia­men­tary elec­tion. Debates’;

– the can­di­dates appeared on TV and radio sta­tions that do not stand very high in media rat­ings. In the same vein, the par­lia­men­tary hope­fuls’ agen­das were pub­lished in nation­wide papers with not very high cir­cu­la­tions;

– the state-run media’s web­sites gave vir­tu­al­ly no infor­ma­tion about the date and time when each par­tic­u­lar can­di­date was to appear on air;

–last but not least, the state-run media did not guar­an­tee each can­di­date equal direct access. In total, there were ten instances when they arbi­trar­i­ly refused to broad­cast or pub­lish par­lia­men­tary hope­fuls’ address­es to vot­ers.

3.3 Independent Media

There were undoubt­ed­ly a num­ber of strik­ing dif­fer­ences in the way inde­pen­dent media cov­ered the par­lia­men­tary elec­tion.

First­ly, they avoid­ed pre­sent­ing elec­tion actors anony­mous­ly or focus­ing on tech­ni­cal­i­ties.

Sec­ond­ly, they gave voice to key actors, includ­ing both oppo­si­tion and non-oppo­si­tion can­di­dates and polit­i­cal fig­ures.

Third­ly, in the run-up to the elec­tion, the mon­i­tored inde­pen­dent media marked­ly increased their elec­tion cov­er­age, par­tic­u­lar­ly fea­tur­ing the can­di­dates as the key actors.

Fourth­ly, they sought to present a wide range of opin­ions and assess­ments regard­ing the elec­tion.

Fifth­ly, they offered polit­i­cal analy­ses and crit­i­cisms of the gov­ern­ment, the CEC and the way the elec­tion was organ­ised.

Sixth­ly, they voiced a wide range of vot­ers’ opin­ions and polit­i­cal views, which were absent from the state-run media.

Here are some fig­ures and facts.

Through­out the mon­i­tored peri­od, tut.by infor­ma­tion por­tal pre­sent­ed 90 can­di­dates, giv­ing their names. For pur­pos­es of com­par­i­son, dur­ing the first stage, i.e. 16 Spetem­ber – 18 Octo­ber 2019, there were only sev­en can­di­dates named. Infor­ma­tion aimed at the elec­torate dra­mat­i­cal­ly increased. tut.by fea­tured some elec­tion-relat­ed ana­lyt­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions. There were also videos about the elec­tion.

The Nar­o­d­na­ja Volia paper ‘spoke’ to sev­er­al oppo­si­tion can­di­dates, high­light­ed cer­tain prob­lems with the elec­tion and crit­i­cised the gov­ern­ment.

Even though inde­pen­dent naviny.by was not on the list of the mon­i­tored media  this time, we can­not help prais­ing its skil­ful project Debates’2019 (https://naviny.by/plot/debaty-2019), which met the high­est pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards, giv­ing voice to the widest spec­trum of can­di­dates, both par­ti­san and those with no par­ty affil­i­a­tion, pro-gov­ern­men­tal and pro-oppo­si­tion.

4. Assessments of the Election

The state-run and inde­pen­dent media diverged con­sid­er­ably, some­times even rad­i­cal­ly, in their assess­ments of the vot­er turnout, vot­ing pro­ce­dure, bal­lot count, elec­tion out­come and elec­tion as a whole.

The state-run media offered pos­i­tive assess­ments exclu­sive­ly, based on the opin­ions of CIS observers and the SCO Obser­va­tion Mis­sion in Min­sk. For instance, BelTA quot­ed Mr Lebe­dev, the Head of the CIS Obser­va­tion Mis­sion, say­ing that the elec­tion ‘was com­pet­i­tive, open, free and trans­par­ent’. (https://www.belta.by/politics/view/vybory-v-belarusi-proshli-na-konkurentnoj-osnove-otkryto-i-glasno-missija-sng-369623–2019/)

Mr Xie Xiaoy­ong, the Head of the SCO Obser­va­tion Mis­sion, expressed the same opin­ion, ‘The Mis­sion recog­nis­es the elec­tion as trans­par­ent, cred­i­ble, and demo­c­ra­t­ic.’ (https://www.belta.by/politics/view/missija-shos-priznaet-parlamentskie-vybory-v-belarusi-prozrachnymi-i-demokratichnymi-369627–2019/ )

The inde­pen­dent media, in their turn, offered both the opin­ions quot­ed above and those express­ing dif­fer­ent assess­ments, first and fore­most aired by the OSCE/ODIHR Obser­va­tion Mis­sion. For instance, tut.by said, ‘Mar­gare­ta Ced­er­felt, the OSCE Spe­cial Coor­di­na­tor, said that the elec­tion took place in a peace­ful atmos­phere, but did not meet impor­tant inter­na­tion­al stan­dards for demo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions.

‘We have noticed that basic free­doms of expres­sion, assem­bly and asso­ci­a­tion were gen­er­al­ly ignored. In addi­tion, we have observed that a large num­ber of can­di­dates applied for par­tic­i­pa­tion in the elec­tion, but their par­tic­i­pa­tion was restrict­ed. These elec­tions have demon­strat­ed an over­all lack of respect for demo­c­ra­t­ic com­mit­ments.’ (https://news.tut.by/economics/661709.html)

The inde­pen­dent media also sub­stan­ti­at­ed their assess­ments with evi­dence from nation­al observers.

For exam­ple, tut.by also cit­ed the Pra­va Vybaru (the Right to Elect) cam­paign, ‘Accord­ing to Pra­va Vybaru observers, in five out of nine con­stituen­cies where they were present, the elec­tions were invalid due to low vot­er turnout. The most sig­nif­i­cant dis­crep­an­cy between the offi­cial turnout fig­ures and those record­ed by the observers was 35%, doc­u­ment­ed at Mahilioŭ-Lienin­s­ki Con­stituen­cy No. 84.’  (https://news.tut.by/economics/661680.html).

The state-run media did not quote such assess­ments. Instead, they crit­i­cised the con­clu­sions made by the OSCE/ODIHR Mis­sion and tes­ti­monies by inde­pen­dent Belaru­sian observers. Here are some exam­ples of these crit­i­cisms.

BelTA State Infor­ma­tion Agency pub­lished the offi­cial reac­tion of the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs (MFA) to the OSCE/ODIHR con­clu­sions, which claimed that they were ground­ed in sub­jec­tive bias­es. ‘What can be expect­ed from heads of obser­va­tion mis­sions who speak neg­a­tive­ly of Belarus and pub­lish insult­ing arti­cles about this coun­try even before they have arrived here?’ said an MFA spokesper­son. (https://www.belta.by/politics/view/mid-belarusi-sozhaleem-chto-missii-obse-ne-udalos-polnostjju-otojti-ot-politizirovannyh-otsenok-369778–2019/ ).

BelTA also quot­ed Mr Ryhor Rapota, the State Sec­re­tary of the Rus­sia – Belarus Union State, ‘OSCE observers assess elec­tions based on their own vision of the world.’ (https://www.belta.by/politics/view/rapota-nabljudateli-ot-obse-dajut-otsenki-vyboram-ishodja-iz-svoego-mirooschuschenija-369994–2019/).

Inde­pen­dent Belaru­sian observers were slammed even more ruth­less­ly. ‘Even dur­ing ear­ly vot­ing, some online resources, insti­gat­ed by an “observ­er” who broke every rule imag­in­able, bul­lied a young vot­er from Brest, whose only fault was that she had gone to the polls,’ said Mikalaj Vosi­paŭ in All Shades of Black, pub­lished in the pres­i­den­tial out­let SB. Belarus Segod­nya on 20 Novem­ber 2019. (The inci­dent in ques­tion involved an alleged attempt at bal­lot-box stuff­ing, record­ed by an observ­er.)

On 23 Octo­ber one of the guests in the stu­dio of Obyek­tivNo on ONT described inde­pen­dent Belaru­sian observers as peo­ple ‘who behaved non­sen­si­cal­ly, to put it mild­ly’.

5. Conclusions

Elec­tion cov­er­age in the state-run media was marked by the absence of any mean­ing­ful con­flict, clash­es of ideas or com­pe­ti­tion between polit­i­cal agen­das and plat­forms. They did not turn the spot­light on the elec­tion.

Even at the peak of cam­paign­ing, the key actors, such as polit­i­cal par­ties and a major­i­ty of can­di­dates, remained invis­i­ble to vot­ers.

Only a few pro-gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tions were recog­nis­able in the state-run media. As for oppo­nents of the gov­ern­ment, their posi­tions were not aired in the state-owned media. They received only neg­a­tive and anony­mous cov­er­age, if any at all.

These media in fact did not intend to engage the elec­torate in mak­ing a polit­i­cal choice by vot­ing for would-be par­lia­men­tar­i­ans.

By con­trast, the inde­pen­dent media facil­i­tat­ed vot­ers’ informed choice by intro­duc­ing a wide range of can­di­dates with their polit­i­cal stances, as well as par­ties they were affil­i­at­ed with.

How­ev­er, these media did not and could not have an essen­tial influ­ence on the cam­paign, as it is the state-run elec­tron­ic and print media that con­tin­ue to shape and con­trol the polit­i­cal agen­da in the country’s media field.

The state-run and inde­pen­dent media gave essen­tial­ly diver­gent assess­ments of the elec­tion. More often than not, they were even oppo­site. So were their inter­pre­ta­tions of the stan­dards of jour­nal­ism in elec­tion cov­er­age.