The executive director of the Independent Press Association Petru Macovei said that 2015 was a disastrous year for the mass media in Moldova. In an interview for Radio Free Europe, he stated that the last year witnessed a major decline in the level of the freedom of the media and media pluralism in the country, IPN reports.
Speaking about 2015 in the mass media, Petru Macovei referred to the two legislative initiatives that were criticized the most by the journalistic guild, international community and the development partners of Moldova. The bills hadn’t been yet examined. “I mean the bills that were nicely packed to fight the Russian propaganda. In reality, they include many provisions that could limit the freedom of expression and the freedom of the media in our country,” he stated.
Petru Macovei noted that the number of politically controlled media outlets increases every year. In 2015, the politicians who somehow favored the massive thefts committed in the banking system used the media institutions they control to shift responsibility for these. This undermined journalistic deontology. “It happened because the most important media outlets, by geographic coverage, were fully politically biased when covering this scandal and later the governmental crisis, the dismissal of the Strelet Government and the formation of a new pro-European alliance,” he said.
According to Petru Macovei, the amendment of the Broadcasting Code to oblige the broadcasters to present ownership transparency statements was one of the few good things in the mass media sector last year. “There were submitted the first ownership statements that didn’t cause big surprises. It was confirmed that we have moguls who control media outlets and manipulate public opinion through these,” stated Macovei.
He underlined the importance of protecting the information area and of combating foreign propaganda. “The monitoring performed in 2015, and in 2014 too, by civil society and by the broadcasting regulator clearly showed that most of the Russian TV channels are used as propaganda instruments. Such deviations must be harshly penalized by the Broadcasting Coordination Council. Civil society of Moldova, especially the media NGOs, repeatedly pleaded against banning some of the channels,” stated Petru Macovei.
In 2016, the Independent Press Association aims to continue the campaign against tendentious information and misinformation in the media and to reveal the propaganda in the foreign mass media with regard to Moldova and in the national mass media.
