Albania Obliges TVs to Air Campaign Tapes

The ruling comes from the Media Monitoring Board, a commission comprised of representatives of both ruling and opposition parties.

It controls the airtime allocated by broadcasters in the 30-day election campaign period.

Albania ranked 102 out of 173 countries in the 2013 Reporters without Borders “Freedom of the Press Index”.

This rating represents a significant downgrade from 2003, when Albania ranked 34 and was the best performer in the Western Balkans.

Pre-packaged tapes of political events in Albania have been around for almost a decade.

But they have taken on a more prominent role in the last two election campaigns, with editors increasingly feeling under pressure to air them and not provide independent coverage of campaign events. 

As in past campaigns, Albania’s political parties are trying their hardest to finesse their campaign coverage for the June 23 parliamentary elections.

So far, only one TV station, Ora News, has declared that it will not transmit tapes of campaign events already prepared by political parties.

“We will follow the real campaign and not already prepared messages,” the TV station said in a statement on May 23.