Elections like weather forecast: coverage in mass media

The Belarusian Association of Journalists has been monitoring the election coverage in 14 state and non-governmental mass media for two weeks. The experts have been analysing the signature collection campaign, presentation of subscription lists and their check-up.

State mass paid more attention to the election in comparison with 2010. For instance, the program Panorama dedicated 3% of its time to the weather, 5% - to the election and 17% - to sport. ONT dedicated 5% of their news time both to the weather and election.

The state mass media paid most attention to the current President – 78% in Panorama.

The independent mass media paid more attention to presidential contenders. Naviny.by dedicated 25% of space to the election, Nasha Niva gave 65% of its pages to the election and Komsomolskaya Pravda focused on potential candidates and the President, head of the monitoring group Ales Antsipenka summed up.

Ales Antsipenka: "Potential candidates are the main personalities in all professional mass media regardless of the country. The presidential contenders have not been the main personalities in the Belarusian mass media until now. The only exceptions are probably Narodnaya Volya and naviny.by. The current President got a lot of space and time in the state mass media.”

The Belarusian Association of Journalists will continue monitoring the election campaign coverage.

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