Moldova tops the rankings among the member states of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) by the freedom of the media. It surpasses slightly Georgia, which is followed by Armenia and Ukraine. The second Media Freedom Index shows that Moldova is partially free, with progress made in certain segments and with regression in other segments.
In a news conference at IPN, director of the Independent Journalism Center Nadine Gogu said the journalistic activity is more often affected by normative deficiencies concerning access to information. Among them are the Government’s decision to suspend the online broadcasting of its meetings and the statement of the president of the Supreme Court of Justice Mihai Poalelungi, who said he will plead for the reintroduction of criminal punishment for slander. This fact aroused the journalists’ concern.
Alina Radu, director of the newspaper “Ziarul de Garda”, said that no cases of physical attack or detention of journalists have been reported recently, but there were cases of intimidation of the media by threats and citations from the law enforcement bodies. The experts’ general perception of justice has improved owing to a decrease in the number of criminal cases started against journalists. The experts also established that the public functionaries avoid the legal provisions on access to information, invoking the state and commercial secret. Some of the institutions levy official taxes for certain information. If the information is provided free, it is offered with a great delay.
There are no banned subjects for the Moldovan journalists though there are manipulating approaches to certain issues. As to the advertising market, the experts said it is not sufficiently free and the authorities hold significant control over the advertising flows.
Media expert Ion Bunduchi said that “Teleradio-Moldova” hasn’t yet managed to meet the standards of a national public broadcaster in a democratic state. Insignificant progress was made as regards digitization owing to the fact that the authorities completed the program on switchover to terrestrial digital television.
The freedom of the Internet and the electronic press was assessed as satisfactory, with all the indicators seeing positive trends.
The two-year Media Freedom Monitoring in the Eastern Partnership Countries Project, implemented with the support of the EU, centers on the determination of the media freedom level in the EaP member states. The monitoring covered the period between July and September 2013.
