Pirkka Tapiola: “In the EU, you rarely hear that television owners get involved into editorial policy”

Pirkka Tapiola, head of the EU Delegation to Moldova, said in an interview to Ziarul de Garda that it is important that the media become free and independent and that there be competition between media outlets. At the same time, the European official expressed his concern with the control that some structures have over a number of televisions in our country and lack of transparency of their owners.

“There is a number of … I wouldn’t call them monopolies, but structures that have control over several televisions, behind which stand politicians, whose political agenda is very visible on TV. Even the recent protests were presented differently by these televisions, as if guided by the attitude of the political leader to them,” Pirkka Tapiola said.

The head of the EU Delegation pleaded for a greater openness of the media to media consumers and for full ownership transparency: “It is very important that the media become free, independent. There can be partisan media outlets, but it is important that they honestly say that, for the media consumer to know about it. Another very important issue is to have free competition between these media outlets. More transparency in terms of media ownership. To have, in fact, full and real transparency of foreign media owners.”

In his opinion, the public television should be strong, like BBC in Great Britain, and mass media should operate with facts and exact data, verify facts, develop professional standards, and not “teach people how to live in the style of the Pravda newspaper.”

When asked how much control European politicians have over TV channels, Pirkka Tapiola said: “In the EU, you rarely hear that television owners get involved into editorial policy. In the EU the press is a business. Thus, mass media deliver a product called free information, or objective information, and this information is purchased by citizens. At the same time, advertisers come to these media outlets to buy space, because they know that people buy free and independent information. The decision-making moment is the quality of the media product. When the press is a business, it is all about citizens’ demand for correct information and the media offer of that.”

Pirkka Tapiola also answered some other Ziarul de Garda questions, related to the current protests in Chisinau, the dialogue with the IMF, Moldova’s progress in the implementation of the Association Agreement with the EU, etc. See the full interview here: