“As Macedonians living in Australia, we will soon rejoice over the selection of a Macedonian citizen in the Australian Parliament.”

This sentence reflects the essence of the text published in the Republika weekly’s web portal, about a Macedonian woman’s candidacy for the upcoming parliamentary elections on the 7th continent, when the citizen of Kumanovo Nevena Spirovska will try to become an MP from Kalvel, the Federal State of Victoria in the federal Parliament.

The article, aside from trying to “infect us” with patriotic pride, is not providing details about the program of the party with an attention-grabbing name, which seems far more interesting than her birthplace.

Review: Macedonian Woman – Sex Party Candidate for an Australian MP

Link to the original article: Македонка од секс партија кандидат за пратеник во Австралија

Date and time of publication: 28.08.2013

Review date: 29.08.2013

Reviewer: Lubomir Kostovski

Accuracy of facts: The text about the young Nevena Spirovska is taken from the Shilo magazine, but from this source we get the picture that the candidate is bound for her first passport.

Information Sources: The author of the text, which attracted a lot of attention, did not use the propaganda links of Spirovska and her party, and didn’t use the technical possibility to include her campaign video, which is particularly unusual and representative.

Extensiveness: Obviously, the idea of the author was to narrow down our view about the program of the candidate, which includes gender equality, protection of women’s reproductive rights, free use of light drugs etc.

Bias: It seems that the author intentionally avoided the essence of the political issues related to the candidacy of Spirovska. In other words, we cannot escape the conclusion that it looks as if it was “inconvenient” to connect a Macedonian woman with ideas that are openly liberal and advanced even for the Western democratic countries.

Originality/Plagiarism: This is one of the texts which states the source of information, but the provided link to the original source is broken. At the same time, the link provided by other Macedonian media seems to be working, which could be the result of the technical potential of the portals.

Quality of the title: The title is informative and non-sensationalistic. In fact, it is a translation of the title from Shilo magazine’s original article.

Photograph: The published photograph is the same as the one used in “Shilo”, a little bit too classic if we take into account Nevena’s motive for entering politics, and they way she is presented in other Australian media or on the Internet. This ordinary graduation photo hides the political personality of Spirovska.

Conclusion: The complete impression from reading this text is that it hides all the relevant data about the politician’s personality. It does not even explain the name of the Sex Party, thus avoiding the essence of reporting on this case. Someone in “Shilo” and “Republika” believed that such data would spoil the “hairstyle” of the Australian Macedonian Spirovska.

This review was created within the framework of the USAID Media Strengthening in Macedonia Project – Media Fact-Checking Service Component, implemented by Metamorphosis. The review is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of its author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Metamorphosis, USAID or the United States Government. For more information on the work of USAID in Macedonia please visit its website (http://macedonia.usaid.gov) and Facebook page (www.facebook.com/USAIDMacedonia).