Lukashenka appears on TV 20 times as much as other candidates

State-run mass media ignore other presidential candidates except Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Over the period of signatures verification, the Belarusian ruler was given 54 minutes on air, while all other candidates put together – 2 minutes only.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists has presented the second part of the monitoring “Covering of Belarusian election -2010 in Belarusian mass media”, regarding the stage of signatures verification.

During the first stage of carrying out the monitoring on October 11-30 it was found out that the topic of elections was far from being a priority for state-run electronic and printed mass media. However, a positive image of only one challenger for the presidential position, the incumbent president, was prevailing in the state-controlled mass-media. It was also noticed that in the programme “Nashi Novosti” (“Our news”) at ONT channel, the topic of the elections received twice as little time as weather forecast, and “Radiofact” programme at the First Channel of the Belarusian radio – three times as little. “Panorama” programme at the First National Channel BT offered to the weather three times as much time as to the elections topic.

In November the situation with covering the elections has changed, but not radically. The elections topic has remained a marginal one in the Belarusian state-run mass- media. These mass media continue to ignore all the candidates except for the dictator. Some nominal attention to other actors of the electoral process has been caused by the procedure of registration of candidates at the Central Elections Commission. At the same time independent mass media covered by the monitoring gave attention to all candidates, and there were no cases of juggling with facts or biased reporting found.

However, all researchers noted certain growth of state mass media’s interest to the elections theme. Thus, 3% of time is offered to the topic of the election in “Panorama” programme now. The same time was dedicated to the weather forecast. In October the election campaign in this programme received 0.86% of time. That is, there is a progress in interest to the election, but considering that 85% of time on air were dedicated to the activities of the incumbent president, such a change does not seem noteworthy.

The same disproportions are observed in other programmes as well. Thus, “Nashi Novosti” programme at ONT channel increased the time on air about the elections twice (from 3.3% to 6.8%). However, during the period of the second part of the monitoring, Alyaksandr Lukashenka was on the screens for about 54 minutes, and other candidates for presidency (except V. Rymasheuski) put together – a little more than 2 minutes.

The researchers note the facts of marginalization and discrediting of oppositional candidates in the stated-run press.