Nicolae Negru, journalist, Ziarul Național: The concentration of the mass-media ownership, between the naturalness and harmfulness

In countries where the press, the radio, the television, the Internet are a business, the media concentration is a natural process, determined by some economic rules, which manifests itself through the elimination of small producers, less efficient from the commercial viewpoint, so that a decreasing number of owners (natural persons or legal entities) control a growing segment of the media market.

This creates the risk of oligopolies, of market monopoly set by several producers, a phenomenon which, in turn, endangers the diversity of viewpoints, the media capacity to provide objective information, to fulfil its function of "watchdog" of the society, to strengthen democracy. In pursuit of larger revenues, the media monopolists are first of all loyal to sellers of advertisement, while the public interest is driven into the background. Therefore, the process of media concentration is carefully watched and regulated in the democratic countries. Such measures are particularly necessary where the concentration is based not so much on the economic, but on the political process, being dictated by the logic of the struggle for power, for control over the electorate.

The authors of the Broadcasting Code, adopted in 2006, were aware that the concentration of mass-media ownership above certain limits endangers "the pluralism and the political, social and cultural diversity", can generate "dominant positions in shaping the public opinion" (Article 7 (5)). But they did not bother developing "tools" to ensure the protection of pluralism and the diversity of information. As the media concentration in Moldova was not done through legal, economic means, but by the means of hostile takeover ("raider attacks"), fraud, abuse, corruption, political control over the BCC, the process of creating the mass-media as a business was killed in the bud, the politicians being determined to rely more and more on their own media institutions. Consequently, the frail independent journalism (together with the solidarity and the deontology) also suffered, being crushed by the self-censorship and the propaganda burden put on its shoulders.

Foto souce: www.ziarulnational.md