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The event aimed at raising the awareness of Members of Parliament about improvement of working conditions for the journalists accredited to the Parliament, who were prohibited access to the meeting room after the legislative body moved to the new building, thus being limited in doing their job.
Participants in the flashmob showed their protest to Parliament representatives, who for over two months had been promising to find a solution to this problem, but have not yet fulfilled their commitment. Protesters improvised a “corral” in front of the Parliament building, symbolizing the room where journalists accredited to the Parliament are forced to work while monitoring Parliament meetings.
“I’m pleading for journalists to be able to do their work honestly. Politicians often accuse media representative of distorting their messages. To make it stop happening or happen less often, decision makers have the legal and moral obligation to ensure decent conditions for journalists’ work,” mentioned Petru Macovei, executive director of the AIP.
The media expert also said that it is absolutely important that journalists, who represent the most important constitutional lever of informing citizens, have access to the information of public interest, implicitly to the plenary meetings of the Parliament; be able to talk with MPs freely and without hindrance; know exactly what the reactions of people’s representatives are when approving draft laws or Parliament decisions. “The work of an MP does not resume to voting in plenary meetings; this work has more than one aspect,” Petru Macovei concluded.
The IJC director Nadine Gogu was also outraged by the arguments of Parliament representatives, who invoked the large number of media outlets broadcasting from the Parliament and the impossibility to find the necessary space in the Parliament’s meeting room. The IJC director asked the rhetorical question of how in this case it is possible for all those journalists and cameramen to be “squashed” into a room of 50 sq.m., and what is the quality of media products that information consumers receive when media representatives/cameramen have no direct access to the meeting room to film by themselves and have control over the recordings. “A journalist must be in the room to film and publish what he considers necessary and not what he is given by a director who selects videos. Technical conditions are a serious hindrance in journalists’ work,” Nadine Gogu said.
The demands of the journalists present at the flashmob were shared by two MPs representing the Liberal Party (Corina Fusu and Valeriu Munteanu), who supported the idea of creating proper conditions for journalists, so that they are no longer kept in the “corral” and manipulated by politicians as to what videos and reports they should present to citizens from the Parliament.
Corina Fusu said that the problem of the media access to the meeting room had been discussed by the parliamentary committee on mass media over two months before. The committee decided to recommend the leadership of the Moldovan Parliament to identify solutions for this problem. The MP herself found two places (the right and left box seats, currently reserved for advisers and counselors), which might be enough for about 80 journalists and cameramen.
The MP believes that the problem is not being solved because there is not will to do so. “If no solutions have been proposed for over two months, it means there are reasons to keep the press separated from Parliament activities,” she said.
Her fellow party member Valeriu Munteanu said that “the fact that several million lei have been invested in the implementation of the electronic voting system, which is not used demonstratively, has a direct connection with keeping journalists at a distance.” It often happens that the number of votes barely crosses the necessary minimum, and if journalists were present in the room, the situation might be different.
Since MPs were skeptical that the problem of journalists’ access to the Parliament’s meeting room could be solved before parliamentary elections, participants in the flashmob signed a petition, asking the Members of the Moldovan Parliament to: 1. Create conditions for immediate return of the media to the Parliament’s meeting room; and 2. Guarantee unhindered exercise of journalists’ mission of covering various aspects of parliamentary work.
The petition can be signed by all those who protect and promote freedom of the media and access to information and support the creation of decent conditions for journalists’ work. It shall be later presented to the President and Members of the Moldovan Parliament.
