Ro
En
Рy
Nadine Gogu, director of the Independent Journalism Center, mentioned that Moldova obtained a total score of 1,285 points for the period from April to June, and, accordingly, the sixth index on a scale from one to seven. For the first time, a 50-poit difference was found compared with the previous Index, which experts explain by the fact that Moldovan media are still affected by some political pressure while they have not yet learned to protect themselves from it. “The main problems emphasized by experts and included into this report involve the authorities’ failure to ensure media ownership transparency,” Nadine Gogu said.
Olivia Pirtac, expert in media law, listed several main reasons that placed Moldova second. Among them, delay in the appointment of members to the Supervisory Board (SB) of the public broadcaster Teleradio-Moldova and of the Gagauz television; imperfection of the legislation on online retransmission of broadcasting content; the conflict between Internet provider StarNet and the Broadcasting Coordinating Council (BCC), which resulted in settlement of a moratorium on this case by the specialized parliamentary committee; etc.
Overall, the expert mentioned that there were no big changes in the politics segment, nor were there declarations or calls for restricting the freedom of expression. “In principle, the political situation was somewhat usual or without great excess in one direction or the other. Neither in terms of improvement, nor in terms of degradation of media freedom,” Pirtac concluded.
Alina Radu, director of the weekly newspaper Ziarul de Garda, reminded of cases of aggression and arrest against journalists, which occurred during the researched period. For example, journalist Oleg Brega was attacked with a spray, and his colleague from Deschide.md, Vadim Ungureanu, was arrested by police. According to Alina Radu, the two cases had a negative impact on the data concerning media freedom in Moldova. In this context, Ziarul de Garda director spoke about the integrity of the judges examining conflicts with the media. “We are dissatisfied with being judged by the very judges we wrote about as being corrupt. (…) We tried to disqualify them once, and we kept disqualifying in the Court of Appeal until we had no one to judge us because, in fact, those in the Court of Appeal have all been written about and all of them have problems with integrity,” Alina Radu said.
At the same time, the director of the investigative newspaper touched upon the permanent problems of reporters, such as limitation of access to information, financial obstacles or self-censorship, which is more difficult to prove but widely spread in media outlets.
Alina Radu criticized the precarious economic conditions in which journalists work, when the gross amount of resources in the advertizing market goes to televisions, while other media are forced to make considerable efforts to find means of subsistence. “The government did not present a plan analyzing the economic situation of media outlets. Maybe a plan for distribution of advertizing, because public institutions often place paid announcements in the media, while it is unclear what principle these institutions use to distribute their announcements and, probably, money,” the expert added.
In broadcasting, too, some gaps were found that had a negative influence on the final report. Expert Ion Bunduchi mentioned that the public broadcaster Teleradio-Moldova has had an ombudsman for three months already, but so far he has not distinguished himself in any way. As for the public television in Gagauzia, the expert believes that political pressure there is much greater than in Chisinau. “There, like in Chisinau, members of the SB are appointed according to political criteria. Teleradio-Gagauzia is now run by the former head of the local parliament, Anna Harlamenco. So, from politics – directly into public mass media”, Bunduchi said. Another problem in the region’s broadcasting, emphasized by the expert, is the lack of a director at the local Gagauz television and the lack of an elected president in the Supervisory Board. Ion Bunduchi claims that this is a very serious situation in the context of the parliamentary elections scheduled for this autumn.
It is the fifth Index out of a series produced by the IJC quarterly as part of the project “Monitoring Media Freedom in Eastern Partnership”. Besides Moldova, the project is being implemented in Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, which are also Eastern Partnership countries. The following report will cover the period between July and September 2014.
The Media Freedom Index for April-June can be found HERE.
Source of photo: http://www.25.md/
