Vitalie Calugareanu, Journalist for Deutsche Welle: Takeover of Media Content Destroys Journalism!

Opinion polls show that for nearly 97% of Moldovans television is the main source of information. It is, therefore, the main lever for manipulation of people’s minds. Analyzing the content disseminated by Moldovan televisions, you may reach the conclusion that Moldovans live in an information desert. Journalists are to blame. In fact, many of the employees of these televisions cannot be even called journalists. They might be called “media workers” at best. Many of the employees of media outlets have no journalistic priorities in their work of collecting, processing and disseminating information, and they don’t follow deontological rules. They play the role of recording and amplifying messages that are conceived by others.

One by one, Moldovan televisions fell at the feet of oligarchy. And they will keep falling. There are signs in this sense. The other day, a media owner who lost funding due to some arrests asked me for the phone number of a big oligarch of ours, claiming he wanted to save his license. Here is an example of how the direction of political support that a media outlet gives to some groups of interests (political interests) can suddenly change, depending on what parties get to control regulatory institutions and financial flows or on the political boat that the owner jumps into. As a result, we have the following scheme: media content imposed by the owner, dictated by politicians, paid from public money (or dirty money), and generating blackmail. For viewers, the takeover of media content by groups of politicians is sometimes inexplicable. Those same people are invited to shows, and then in elections they are the candidates. All channels show the same faces and discuss the same problems. Such boredom!

This media swamp, however, has some positive effects. The graver, in editorial sense, the situation of politically subordinated televisions is, the greater the opportunity for honest journalists that have initiative and patience to identify topics of interest for the community. In the conditions of media concentration, it is a sector with no competition. The need in media content fully compliant with journalistic deontology can be a source of income for groups of independent journalists. However, this construction should be made carefully, ensuring continuity and focusing on creation of a brand with credibility and integrity, with clear journalistic values, built around people, and not companies.