How can a news agency survive in Moldova in an epoch dominated by ‘free cheese’ offered on the Internet and by the so-called information resources with politicians and narrow interests behind them? Valeriu Vasilica, founding director of IPN, discusses these challenges in a comment for Media Azi.
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Valeriu Vasilică, founding director of PN

In June, the News Agency IPN (Info-Prim Neo SRL) will celebrate 10 years of its foundation as a media outlet with independent editorial policy. In fact, the brand IPN has its origins in the Municipal Public Agency Info-Prim, which was created in 1998 as part of the then press holding that was destroyed for political reasons in 2005, as the whole holding was. I noted this detail only to present a model by which the news agencies in Moldova can disappear.

If then, in 2005, as the founder of a new agency, I had known how many ‘deaths’ it would experience, I wouldn’t have probably started such a business. But it is probably good that I didn’t know about all of them. In fact, in 2005 there were more than 10 functional news agencies in Moldova. Now, according to different criteria, there are 2 or 2.5, or 2.5 +0.5, or at most 3 news agencies. Respectively, the disappearance trend has marked the news agencies of Moldova most of all, followed by their effort to adjust themselves to the new conditions. 

Concerns common to Europeans

I have nothing against the natural disappearance of media outlets if they do not resist competition and are unable to adjust themselves to the always changing and tough conditions of the information market.

For example, the news agencies of Moldova also face one of the great challenges of the current stage, noted by the European Alliance of News Agencies, which is the capacity of the news agencies to establish new relations with the clients at a time when the communication through the Internet is fully open, in particular through social networking sites, and amid the crisis of an economic model for the print media, which, in Europe, is one of the main categories of clients of the news agencies.

In this respect, the news agencies of Moldova can use the same solutions as their European colleagues:

a) to ensure a balance between the speed at which the clients are provided with media products and the truthfulness of these products, their credibility. Our agency’s slogan during the last few years has been “IPN is a news agency of good faith”. It seems to us that this slogan significantly reflects our task to ensure a balance between swiftness and credibility. The IPN’s product tends to be maximally swift, leaving yet no room for ambiguity and interpretation.

That’s why we are honored to have among our subscribers well-known international organizations and embassies like the EU Delegation to Moldova, the Office of the Council of Europe in Moldova, the World Bank Representative Office in Moldova, the IMF Representative Office in Moldova, the OSCE Mission to Moldova, the U.S. Embassy, the Embassy of China, the Embassy of Germany, the Embassy of Japan, the Embassy of Romania, the Embassy of Poland, the Embassy of Lithuania, the Embassy of Georgia, the Embassy of Latvia, the Embassy of Switzerland, etc. and such representatives of the public authorities as the Secretariat of Moldova’s  Parliament, the Staff of Moldova’s President, the Chancellery of Moldova’s Government. Among our subscribers are also all the relevant media with national coverage and all the local broadcasters of the country.

b) to make sure that the media products help the end-users, through the agency of the clients, or directly, by publication on the own website, to better understand the events and processes in life so as to be better prepared for taking important decisions. For the purpose, the agencies must be able to handle professionally different media instruments that form the hierarchy of profoundness: breaking news, facts and comments. In particular, the IPN’s media product is designed for qualified consumers of information who are ready to pay for a high-quality, responsible and non-manipulating product;

c) to ensure a balance between the quality of the text and image, the last acquiring a special importance in the process of promoting the media message in the Internet era.

‘Purely Moldovan’ challenges

But the Internet and other circumstances make the news agencies of Moldova deal also with more specific, ‘Moldova’ challenges. Namely these challenges caused and can yet cause their disappearance.

Many of the news agencies disappeared because of the ‘invasion’ of so-called ‘information resources’ or ‘information portals’ placed on the Internet. During the last few years, these turned into a massive phenomenon that wound have caused problems to no one if there hadn’t been a series of circumstances that, for their part, create conditions of disloyal competition for the media outlets with the official status of news agency:

1. Many of them are created by persons or groups with political or, more seldom, economic interests, and pursue goals that are far from being informational. At the same time, the low level of information and political culture in society allows them to use the imposed confusion between the so-called ‘resources’ and the news agencies for their own interests. Not many people in Moldova perceive the ‘free cheese’ that the ‘resources’ often offer in the same trap as in the proverb. The only difference is that the trap is informational in character and its goal is to manipulate. Unlike the news agencies that sell their product, but offer grantees for it, including in courts of law, because it is verified and credible. Regrettably, a part of agencies’ clients give up taking out subscriptions or refuse to sign new contracts for the reason that there is enough information on the Internet;
 
2. The activity of the ‘resources’ is not economic as these do not spend the financial resources they earn. Usually, they do not have clients or subscribers and do not sell their merchandise, while the revenues from publicity cannot ensure the necessary level of financing, given that not even the TV channels of Moldova are now able to ‘stay alive’ with money from honest and transparent publicity. The activity is usually maintained by donations made by backers, while the costs, especially those related to remuneration, are unofficial and the taxes are mainly not paid or are significantly reduced, which is nothing else but tax evasion. For their part, the news agencies are economic entities with all the revenues and costs in sight, which work based on official contractual relations with the clients and pay all the taxes. In such conditions, the agencies are not always able to maintain the salaries of their employees at the level of the pays of those working for ‘resources’ and other media bodies with similar behavior. This means that once in several years, the agencies, at least IPN, are put in the situation to renew the team of journalists because the most skilled ones are attracted by higher salaries paid in the aforementioned conditions.

3. Many of these ‘resources’ dishonestly take the products of the news agencies, which spend great and real human, financial and material resources for them. There are only several of the many information portals existing in Moldova that are decent enough to pay for the taken products and this happens because the legislation and the news agencies themselves allow them to behave like this.

General conditions and particular discrimination

The news agencies of Moldova work in conditions in which they face major risks to their existence, but they also enjoy certain advantages.

Among the advantages is the fact that the Moldovan politicians do not consider the agencies a profitable ‘business’ for them, unlike the TV and radio stations, the print media and the already mentioned ‘information resources’ because they realize that nobody will buy an evidently manipulating product. The manipulation can be successful only in the case of the ‘free cheese’. No news agency connected with the name of a politician, oligarch or politician-oligarch appeared in Moldova during many years. On the contrary, these withdrew their support for the former or the still existing agencies, while those that they continue to finance are no longer considered agencies and nobody subscribes to them. These actually joined the ‘resources’ category. Therefore, the news agencies remain one of the few areas of the Moldovan mass media where the freedom of the media can be really expressed. Thus, the news agencies provide a model showing how the free media outlets can exist as a business.

The disadvantages and risks are related to the difficult economic, social and political situation in the country, which does not offer favorable conditions for developing the free media outlets, including owing to the low purchasing power of the consumers of information, in general, and of the clients of the news agencies, in particular, and also because of the very limited number of these. The low level of information and political culture in Moldovan society also does not allow the consumers of information to show greater discernment in the process of selecting the information they consume daily.

In these general conditions, the news agencies of Moldova have to also deal with discriminatory conditions, compared with other media bodies. The agencies’ activity is regulated by the same provisions of the Media Law, as the activity of the periodicals is. It is strange, but also unfair as the periodicals are exempted from paying VAT, while the news agencies pay the VAT fully. Maybe the answer should be looked for in the lack of personal interest of those who make and implement laws in this area of increased media freedom created by the news agencies…

Maybe these are problems related to the growth of the Moldovan society, the Moldovan media and of the Moldovan news agencies as a component part of the first two. Maybe the European integration process comes to help solve these problems, in time, and develop the news agencies in normal conditions. Until then the news agencies of Moldova, in particular IPN, ‘die’ almost monthly, if they do not gather sufficient financial resources for salaries, services and taxes, almost daily or hourly, when they are robbed of their products, or once in several years, when they have to build new teams of journalists.

Valeriu Vasilică, founding director of IPN