90% of time at Belarusian TV channels is devoted to Aliaksandr Lukashenka.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists presents the results of the monitoring “Elucidation of the presidential election of 2006 in the Belarusian mass media”

On 2 February at the office of the public association “Belarusian Association of Journalists” the first monitoring “Elucidation of the presidential election of 2006 in Belarusian mass media” was presented to journalists.

According to the information that was spread at the press-conference by the media expert Ales Antsipenka, the monitoring reflected the results of the 10-day monitoring of the elucidation of the presidential election in Belarus by electronic and printed mass media. This monitoring was held on 16-27 January 2006.

— Frankly speaking, it is the continuation of the work that was done by BAJ during the parliamentary election and the referendum in 2004, — stated Antsipenka. According to him, the period since 16 till 27 January was chosen because it was the time of one of the most important stages of the electoral campaign. These days the initiative groups of pretenders to presidency finished collecting signatures for registration of candidates and passed the signatures to the territorial election commissions.

The following state media were chosen for the monitoring: The first Belarusian TV channel (BT), the Whole-national TV (ONT), two regional TV channels in Mahiliou and Vitsebsk, the program of the Belarusian radio “Radiofact” and a number of the state and non-state printed media – the newspapers “Sovetskaya Belorussiya”, “Zviazda”, “Narodnaia Volia”, “Komsomolskaya Pravda v Belorussii” and “Nasha Niva”.

A. Antsipenka stated that according to the results of the monitoring the topic of presidential elections wasn’t priority for the state electronic mass media during the monitored period of time. The information about the election in “Nashi Novosti” (“Our news”) program on ONT took only 70 seconds and the collection of signatures wasn’t elucidated at all.

By the way, according to the BAJ monitoring, 90% of time at this TV channel in comparison to other subjects of the electoral process (Central Election Commission, observers from CIS countries and the Western Europe, other pretenders to presidency) was devoted to Aliaksandr Lukashenka.

— None of the candidates to presidential position were mentioned, except for A. Lukashenka, — said Ales Antsipenka.

According to him, the same things are observed at regional TV – absence of information about collection of signatures, about pretenders to presidency (except for A. Lukashenka) and other subject of the electoral process. According to BAJ, social and economical topics are among the most preferable ones at different Belarusian TV channels.