The executive director of the Association of Independent Press Petru Macovei considers that the influence exerted by the political class on the mass media in Moldova intensifies instead of decreasing. According to him, the phenomenon can be diminished. The media NGO make effort to educate the consumers of media products so as that the people are able to make a difference between a good journalistic product and a product of a poor quality.

“In Moldova they use more sophisticated technology to manipulate the public opinion and we try to educate the people so that they know the effects of manipulation and how informational manipulation takes place. We also intend to reveal the most serious cases of manipulation of the public opinion through the mass media,” the API executive director said in an interview for IPN.

Petru Macovei also said that the API launched a campaign within which they will monitor mass media organizations so as to tell the people that certain television or radio stations or a certain news agency manipulated the public opinion when they presented a news story as they presented it. They will also try to develop the critical spirit of the consumers of media products.

In the same connection, he said that there is no press of only a good quality. There is boulevard press and bought journalists. When there is a diversity of journalistic products, the media organizations must protect the good journalists and responsible editorial staffs on the one hand, and condemn the manipulation attempts made by the journalists on the other hand.