Ro
En
Рy
journalist at Deutsche Welle
It's time to give up to the status of tick in order to stop the degradation of the press and the disparagement of the journalism as a profession. We will not succeed in changing Moldova through manipulation! I remember when Ion Muruianu called us “rabid, dangerous for the society dogs”. We attacked them all without recognizing that, in fact, the man had praised us. Since then, the situation has degenerated. The rabid dogs turned slightly into obedient “puppies” who write for food.
In Germany, the journalists are being well paid, defended by the trade union and the legislation, against press owners and external pressures. They respect their profession and the public and in turn they are respected as well. In Moldova, the employee is alone in front of the employer who dictates him what to do. Better to say – in front of the owner’s representative, because the real owners usually hide in the Cyprus and Liechtenstein offshore. A German journalist employed in the printing press sector enjoys an initial salary of 2,600 Euros and high growth opportunities. Those involved in radio and television earn more. In Germany, the most underpaid are the freelancers, i.e. those who collaborate with several publications - they earn about 1,200 Euros. We have few of these because they would not survive from collaborations only and write for several newspapers with different political interests.
The German journalists have strong unions that negotiate their wages at guild level, and can not be dismissed in case they organize strikes. Through the collective labor agreement, the employer agrees not to penalize employees for strikes. In contrast, in Moldova, one day I and my colleagues from a radio station dared to take strike action. The following morning we found ourselves unable to enter the front door because of the changed padlock, and after a couple of hours we were told to be fired.
In Moldova, the journalists are forced to sign employment contracts and copyright agreements. The owner may, at anytime, deprive them of these copyrights in order to force them to resign. Moreover, the amounts are moved from one contract to another depending on the tax increases.
The German press focuses on quality. The Moldovan journalists give special regard to quantity, they are chasing after clicks and ratings, scandals and sensational stories, as small as possible investments and as high as possible IMMEDIATE profit, at least political, if not economical. The German publishing houses are not political, while the Moldovan media owners are using the TV stations and the newspapers as blackmail and power tools. Some have even bought radio stations hoping that the political leaders will include them into the electoral list. The Germans are facing pressures as well. For example, Sueddeutsche Zeitung wrote some bad statements about the “Aldi” company and the latter withdrew its advertising. Nevertheless, the editorial offices resist.
As for the political orientation of the media institutions, the ideology of a newspaper is clearly defined and presented to the German readers - it is known if a newspaper is conservative, liberal etc. Moldova suffers from a total lack of transparency. We do not know who own the TV stations, who are behind the off-shore companies, and from the guild discussions we find out that the secret services have their own people “infiltrated” in the media. Germany has already banned the recruitment of journalists by the services, while we barely notice, stealthily, that the problem exists.
And in general, the whole Moldovan press business model is flawed. When you treat the journalists as slaves, humiliate them and threaten them you can get nothing but failure. This model is deeply flawed because it does not respect the journalists neither as employees, nor as persons. Or the German journalist saying during a conference that: “Only the free media institutions with free and autonomous journalists are profitable” was right.
Do you know what the German media owners fear the most? They are afraid to loose the good reputation of the institutions they lead. More than to get fines. In Moldova, the political TV stations would be afraid of some very harsh penalties (such as the withdrawal of the license), but the possibility of getting them is practically reduced to zero because the 9 seats of the Broadcasting Coordinating Council are politically shared. Judging by the rough manipulation used by our TVs we can deduce that they don’t care about their reputation at all.
The article was published within the Advocacy Campaigns Aimed at Improving Transparency of Media Ownership, Access to Information and promotion of EU values and integration project, implemented by the IJC, which is, in its turn, part of the Moldova Partnerships for Sustainable Civil Society project, implemented by FHI 360.
This article is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The content are the responsibility of author and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.
