Ion BUNDUCHI, Director of APEL Association of Electronic Press: “The Biggest Success Is Avoidance of Total Degradation of Journalism in The Situation of Total Degradation of The Political Class”

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?

• The biggest success is probably the fact that total degradation of journalism could be avoided in the situation of total degradation of the political class, which journalists sought a lot and often, although politicians have nothing to say. Journalism did not totally degrade because there still are media outlets that did not forget that they are mass media neither during elections, nor during political battles. They are few, unlike those of the other kind, which confused journalism with election campaigning and with party propaganda. Another success is the appearance of  a new niche television, focused on farmers. We don’t have politics, but we do have plenty of politicized media and armies of political analysts. Since the beginning of our kind, we have been farmers, but without television and without analysts for farmers. In 2015, media education was strengthened, and I hope that in time it will get rid of pseudo-journalists. There was also a Media Forum, which brought into focus the issues of concern to the media community and made an agenda for the year. Also, a law was modified and we found out who the owners of radios and televisions are. Transition to digital television got moving. We don’t know where it will lead, but for long years it had been at an impasse. The draft Broadcasting Code was taken out of the parliament’s drawers, and the dust it had collected in four years was shaken off a bit in three public hearings. We should note the dynamism in the development of online media, namely the outlets that brought professional values to the cyberspace from real life. In the year when the European rhetoric calmed down both among authorities and among the media, we should remember a cycle of programs on this topic produced by 10 regional televisions. Failures have definitely been much more numerous: the government’s action plan for mass media has remained an inaction plan; the professionalism test has been failed by many important media outlets during elections and in the endless political speaking battle; new members of the BCC [Broadcasting Coordinating Council] and the SB [Supervisory Board] have been appointed in the old manner, according to political criteria; the lack of a drop hammer for the concrete monopoly in broadcasting and commercial advertising etc. I will stop here. There is not enough space for the entire list of failures.
• The year is expected to be eventful, and not only politically, so manipulation in mass media will feel at home, whether it comes from our own country or from someplace else. Online media will definitely continue developing the most swiftly, along with advertising in cyberspace. We are still waiting for at least one of the three national multiplexes of digital television, even if it comes after a long delay. The situation with regional multiplexes is still foggy, and I don’t know how it will settle in 2016. The parliament is expected to elect people for the two vacancies in the SB of TRM [“Teleradio-Moldova” public broadcaster], but there are no expectations that the SB will act any differently. The SB will have to appoint a director for radio and we are not sure if it will manage to do it, after it failed in electing the TRM president. After a year of scandals, the situation at “Teleradio-Gagauzia” [Gagauz public broadcaster] might settle, although there is little hope, since it is a year of the local parliament’s elections. We are expecting for the launch of an online library for journalists, including for those who do journalistic investigations. With a “wonder” parliament we can’t expect spectacular developments in the regulatory framework in 2016, although they are greatly needed for real media pluralism. In all cases, the year will more likely be a year of repairs than capital constructions.