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In fact, during the last period, ‘Jurnal de Chisinau’ was issued in black and white version, although previously it used to be printed in coloured format. The last issue of the newspaper of the last week announced a print run of 6,640 copies. The newspaper was founded in 1999 and will end its activity in 2019.
Contacted by Media-azi.md to comment the decision to suspend the activity of the newspaper, Val Butnaru, explained that ‘Jurnal de Chisinau’ got in the same situation ‘all the newspapers in the world did’. ‘The newspaper is a profit business and since we don’t publish advertising any more, we don’t earn profit. Thus there is no reason for the newspaper to exist,’ explained Val Butnaru.
The director and the founder of the newspaper claims that actually, ‘Jurnal de Chisinau’ was a phenomenon in the print media from the Republic of Moldova, which helped to remove from the power the former President, Vladimir Voronin. ‘It has been a phenomenon in the Bessarabian media for 20 years. Unfortunately, no one is talking about it and no one will talk about the newspaper that overthrew the regime of Voronin. Yes, we had PRO TV, the only television in the opposition, but PRO TV was always very careful, those who worked there knew when to stop. It was a phenomenon and I am glad that many quality journalists who are now working in other places worked at this newspaper,’ said Butnaru.
Butnaru believes that the future belongs to online field. ‘Very serious printed newspapers stop their activity all around the world. We have to face the reality at ease of our mind and try other forms of journalism – online and so on,’ said the founding director.
The founder and the director of the Russian language weekly newspaper from Balti, Veaceslav Perunov, who is also the Chairperson of the Association of Independent Press (AIP) believes the same about the future of his editorial office. Perunov stated for Media-azi.md that, beginning with 1 January 2020, ‘SP Balti’ will no longer be issued in printed version and that the editorial will go online. ‘We have been supporting this newspaper for about 10 years only due to the grants we obtained. Thanks to the fact that we have been part of Internews project for the second year in a row, we were able to see the development perspectives namely on the Internet, with video content. Maybe monetizing our site will allow us to earn profit. We understood that the printed version no longer has any perspectives and this will be the last month we will print our newspaper’, explained Perunov.
As the Chairperson of AIP, Perunov draws the attention of the members of the association, who own newspapers, not to be afraid to develop their resources on the Internet, because ‘in the next five years there will be no printed newspapers’. He urges them not to stick to their newspapers and to ‘come to the Media Forum’.
He said that he had already announced Posta Moldovei about the fact that they should not make any subscriptions. Veaceslav Perunov mentioned that, previously, two projects for the funding of the printed newspaper were rejected and that beginning with October, the editorial would be maintained from own sources. According to him, the newspaper has a circulation of 2,000 copies and is read mostly by people with low income. Perunov says that readers will have no access to information, but he does not want to volunteer endlessly.
Broadly speaking, the journalist claims this is not so bad, but, on the contrary, it is a positive phenomenon because the editorial office will escape the burden of editing the newspaper. ‘Three years ago this would have been a tragedy. Today, however, we see that Internet resources and the social media are thriving to develop and we count a lot on the development of video content and on broadcasting our own shows and mojo journalism,’ told us Veaceslav Perunov.
Note that the newspaper TIMPUL gave up printing on 31 May 2019, and previously, the newspaper ‘Adevărul Moldova’ disappeared.
