Experts say Moldova has no mechanisms to develop cultural journalism

There are no sufficient effective mechanisms in Moldova that would contribute to the development of the national media specialised in cultural matters, there is no law on state support for it, and there are no facilities for their activity, including in the fiscal area, said the participants in round tables held as part of the pilot-project “Visions on Cultural Policy for Moldova: from Changes to Viability”, launched by Soros-Moldova Foundation in cooperation with the Amsterdam-based European Cultural Foundation (ECF). The participants analysed the situation of Moldova’s print media, which is part of the basic areas of the cultural industries, beside television and radio, film production and distribution, book publishing and selling, advertising, press, folk art and show business. Experts in the field stated that the difficult socio-economic situation is one of the decisive factors for the population’s attitude towards the print press, which takes one of the last places among the consumers’ preferences, representing only 0.43% of the expenses recorded in 2005. They outlined more reasons conditioning the fact that only 26% of the population gets the news from periodicals, the majority going for the radio and television. The participants in the round tables, most of them being stakeholders in the cultural field, reached the conclusion that it is necessary to change the offer of print press, in order to change the present situation of insufficient demand for periodicals. The participants proved to be vexed by the fact that “The 1999-2003 concept on state support and spur of mass media”, adopted by the Parliament of Moldova, is not being implemented. Moreover, no law on state support of mass media has been enacted; no fair conditions have been created for publications of informative-advertising character, indifferently of their feature type and legal organisation. The moderator of a round table, Valeria Grosu, mentioned that the cultural journalism has lacked state financing since 1994; it is not availing of any specific fiscal policy, and it is coping with lots of difficulties when it comes to distribution, maintaining on the floating line only due to the cultural policy and own projects. At the same time, the participants underlined that not enough mechanisms have been created in order to contribute to the national mass media development, and there are no facilities for mass media, including in the fiscal domain. Referring to another domain of the cultural industry, namely to advertising, the participants mentioned that it represents a product of creation. This domain has been lately developing within a dynamic pace and is annually increasing by 25-40%. More than 200 agents offer advertising services, with the advertising business volume reaching over $14 mln in 2006. Experts consider that many of the situations governed by the Law on Advertising are not up to date anymore and are to be amended. In particular, it is necessary to amend the provisions on the advertising definition, the area to which the law applies and the general requirements applied to advertising and its distribution. They also say that an obvious, concrete and wide definition of “advertising” is needed, as the periodicals and the fiscal bodies are looking differently at the issues of imposing taxes on the political, commercial and non-commercial advertising.