On Sunday, July 11, ZdG had a very good professional score: the ZdG team worked in shifts from 6 am until 2.35 am the next morning, informing citizens about the voting process, challenges and provocations, trends, preliminary data, statements, violations, and results. It was work against the clock, and the number of readers who chose to read www.zdg.md on this day was twice as many as on a typical day. 

According to Google Analytics data, on election day, during 20 hours of non-stop work, the www.zdg.md website was accessed by 94 891 users, generating 374 433 views. ZdG.md was a source of information not only for those at home, but also for those Moldovans abroad. 61.67% of users who read ZdG.md news on election day were from Moldova, and the rest from countries where large communities of Moldovan citizens live – Italy (9.35%), Germany (5.93%), Romania (4.22%), Great Britain (3.89%), France (2.91%), United States of America (1.96%), Ireland (1.61%), Spain (1.18%) and the Russian Federation (1.05%).

On election day, our homepage www.zdg.md was the most viewed, followed by the Live text which provided up-to-the-minute information about the voting process – from the opening of the polls to the presentation of the first election results. Third on top on July 11 was a story about the districts with the highest turnout, followed by a story about the record turnout of diaspora voters in a parliamentary election.

On election day ZdG.md was also a source of information for other news portals in Moldova (stiri.md, protv.md, deschide.md, tv8.md, realitatea.md, agora.md, nordnews.md, newsmaker.md) and Romania (g4media.ro, hotnews.ro, comisarul.ro, podul.ro).

On July 11 we were also followed on our social media pages: on Facebook, Telegram and Instagram. On the Ziarul de Gardă Facebook page, the post with the most reactions (over 5 thousand) was the news about the record turnout of Moldovans from the diaspora in a parliamentary election. The same news was also the most shared (460 shares). The most commented news on Facebook was the one about our fellow countrymen who took the plane from Palma de Mallorca to Barcelona to vote (475 comments).

On Telegram our posts were seen by an average of 1.6 – 1.8 thousand subscribers. 

At the same time, ZdG readers were able to review the texts about the members of each party on the ballot paper, so they could vote while informed and aware. 

Members of the team worked in the newsroom, but also in the field, visiting Rezina, Orhei and Varnița, talking to dozens of voters. “I was most impressed by some of the phrases of the people who later confirmed the election result: ‘We voted for a Parliament without thieves and bandits’, ‘We want to kick the thieves out of the Parliament’, ‘The kuliok (the Russian name for the bag with bribes and nickname given to Socialist leader Igor Dodon after a video with him taking such a bag from Vlad Plahotniuc) has dried up. The tsar gave little in this election”, says reporter Marina Gorbatovschi.

ZdG reporters communicated a lot with citizens, responding to requests from people in different districts of Moldova, but also from different countries where we have an active diaspora. Aliona Ciurcă has been working on the “Diaspora” section of ZdG for several years, so she spent the day of July 11 in non-stop communication with Moldovan citizens abroad.  “A big thank you to those who sent us photos and videos from polling stations in different corners of the world,” says Aliona Ciurcă.

ZdG also kept the Russian-speaking public informed non-stop throughout the day yesterday, giving Russian speakers both in Moldova and abroad the opportunity to find out about the voting process quickly and comprehensively. 

The 15 members of the team were involved in documentation, text writing, filming, and video editing. This would mean that over the course of yesterday the team donated over 120 hours of work to its audience in just 24 hours. In total, over the course of yesterday, ZdG reporters wrote 89 news stories, produced 11 videos and two live broadcasts from the field. Cristina Dulea is the news team leader and, along with her colleagues, she relied heavily on the support of readers and sent them a message: “Thank you for being with us, for helping us get the best footage from the diaspora, pointing out the problems you faced and sharing your enthusiasm. You support us by reading, distributing and commenting on ZdG news, and this is the greatest reward for the ZdG family.”

The editorial staff would like to thank Cristina, Elena, Milena, Loredana, Marina, Aliona, Victor and Anatolie, Victoria, Daniela, Olga, Andrei, Dan and Igor, the members of the team involved in the activity on July 11.

We thank the audience for choosing to read ZdG. Please note that on election night the last new information was published on the website at 2.30 am and the next day at 7 am ZdG colleagues were back at work. Regardless of which political forces won seats in the new legislature, ZdG will continue to do what it does best: monitor public money, corruption, the work of the judiciary and human rights violations.

ZdG wouldn’t be as good without its readers and subscribers, but it would certainly succeed even less without its supporters, primarily the 164 donors on Patreon. We thank each individual supporter and hope that the number of supporters will grow to make ZdG possible going forward.