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Рy06 January 2016
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At the start of the new year, we asked some media experts to make a retrospective of 2015 so as to see what was good in the media and what was not. We also asked them to make some predictions for 2016. Below, we are publishing their replies to the two questions asked by Media Azi:
- What are, in your opinion, the successes and failures of 2015?
- How do you think the situation will develop in 2016?
- In my opinion, year 2015 was a year of failures. Successes were so insignificant against the background of great failures that their impact could not be felt. Among successes I would certainly mention the entry into force of modifications to the Broadcasting Code, which stipulated the obligation for broadcasters to submit declarations to ensure ownership transparency. However, from the very beginning I thought that this modification is insufficient, and since it wasn’t accompanied by another, much more important, modification stipulating limitation of ownership concentration, it does nothing but confirm things that everybody already knows. To positive developments I would also add the Mass Media Forum, convened for the first time in Moldova, where the journalistic community gathered for two days and had discussions about its most important problems. Also, a roadmap has been developed – a very important document both for us, public associations doing mass media advocacy, and for politicians of good faith, who want to develop this industry sector. Unfortunately, as I said, there were much more failures. Year 2015 began with a shameful act – the PDM [Democratic Party of Moldova] and the PLDM [Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova] registered a draft law on modifying the Broadcasting Code. They “wrapped” the legislative initiative into the fight against Russian propaganda, which is very good, but it proved to be really deficient and damaging to the media, because it contained provisions that limited press freedom. Luckily, the initiative was not finalized, but I see it as a very serious mistake of Moldovan politicians, who had in earlier years declared themselves great supporters of press freedom and journalists’ freedom. An even greater failure was the coverage of the so-called “robbery of the century.” When approaching this topic, which is of very big public interest, some media outlets, including televisions with national coverage, sent manipulating messages. They practically misinformed citizens instead of providing to them objective and honest information. They did it from their owners’ perspective, and the owners are politicians. In fact, that is the biggest problem in Moldova – politicians own serious properties in mass media and use them not for business purposes, but for very ugly manipulation of public opinion. During the entire 2015 we all witnessed an intense process of manipulation on some important media outlets that had positioned themselves as independent televisions when they launched. Year 2015, like litmus paper, showed how dependent their independence is. Taken together, these failures reduced to zero the efforts of healing the media market of our country.
- Forecasts for the media sector are unfortunately directly proportional to developments in politics. The promotion of reforms necessary for healing this sector will be possible only if we come to have a healthy political class. However, given the quality of our politicians and the private interests that they promote, it might not materialize. We, non-governmental organizations, will definitely insist on realization of these actions and/or their inclusion into government programs. The success or failure of these efforts will unfortunately depend, as I said, on political interests, because in our country decision makers in the government and the parliament give priority to political interests, not the public interest. It won’t be at all easy to do it, but we will try in the hopes of at least some success. We rely on the support of Moldova’s development partners, because the past two years convinced us that without pressure from them things don’t change, neither in mass media nor in other sectors.
