Parliament Watch! | Strengthening the political debate and deliberative discourse

The key finding from the fourth report on monitoring the media reporting is that during the monitored period, from 1 to 31 December, the media increased the reporting on the parliamentary debates, compared to November and October.

The key-findings from the Fifth Monitoring Report (monitoring period 1-31 December, total 11 sessions) are that the discussion on the legal proposals remains weak, with somewhat bigger interaction among the MPs compared to the previous monitoring periods (19 June-1 August, 25 August- 30 September and November).

This report covers the monitoring period 1 -30 November 2014 and it includes 10 parliamentary sessions. The main conclusions of this Fourth report are that the discussion about legislation remains weak and that MPs had less interactions compared to the previous monitoring periods (19 June – 1 August, 25 August – 30 September and October).

Sources for most of the published information recorded in the third report of monitoring of media’s coverage in the period from 1 to 30 November were MPs from only one political party. Information comes most of times from active and elected MPs from the opposition who did not accept the mandates, compared to MPs from the leading coalition.

This report covers the monitoring period 1 -31 October 2014 and it includes 11 parliamentary sessions. The main conclusions in this Third report are that the discussion about the legislation remains weak, but the MPs had little more interaction compared to the previous monitoring periods 19 June – 31 July and 25 August – 30 September.

In the period 1 – 31 October, newspapers and televisions dominantly mentioned the Assembly in the context of broader political events, the termination of the boycott by members of the Parliament from the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA), and the ongoing boycott of the Assembly by the coalition led by the Social-Democratic Union for Macedonia (SDSM).

The monitoring period of this report is 25 August-30 September. It includes 21 parliamentary sessions. The main conclusions are that the discussion about the legislation remains weak, but the MPs had little more interaction compared to the first monitoring period 19 June – 31 July.

In the period 19 June – 30 September, newspapers and televisions mostly mentioned the Assembly in the context of broader political events. Much less they informed specifically about the content of debates and the arguments brought about by MPs during plenary sessions and sessions of the committees in the Assembly.

The main findings in the first report of the monitoring are that in the monitoring period 19 June – 3 August, which includes 20 parliamentary sessions, the speeches of the members of the Parliament (MPs) were mostly supported with arguments.