The press in Moldova has been in decline since 2013. Nadine Gogu, executive director of the Independent Journalism Center, in a news conference at IPN said that if the situation does not change, Moldova risks being included in the list of countries where the press is not free. Such a situation was witnessed until 2010.
“The report on the freedom of the press in Moldova (May 3, 2016 – May 3, 2017) shows that the old problems were perpetuated during the past year, such as concentration of media ownership and unfair competition, defective legal framework, limitation of access to information and interference by the political factor in the activity of the audiovisual and media regulatory authority, etc.”, said Nadine Gogu, noting there were also witnessed cases of verbal abuse against journalists and suing of media outlets by senior state officials for defamation.
Even if the legislative body expressed its concern about the avalanche of Russian propaganda, some of the new broadcast licenses issued by the Broadcasting Coordination Council in 2016 were given to Russian TV channels. “Things show that we do not have a media-friendly environment. The environment is actually hostile. It is hard to be journalist, to remain independent in the current conditions on our market. We hope things will change this year,” stated Nadine Gogu.
Executive director of the Association of Independent Press Petru Macovei stated there are problems related to the journalists’ deontology and this aspect directly depends on the exaggerated political control exerted by media owners, a large part of who are politicians. There is now no fair competition on the media market of Moldova.
Director of the paper “Ziarul de Garda” Alina Radu said there is free press, but it is hard for this to survive. All the advertisements are attracted by media outlets that are politically controlled. Instead, the free media outlets offer the state 50% of the salaries gained from foreign grants that are obtained with difficulty.
Director of the Journalistic Investigations Center Cornelia Cozonac said a lot of group of journalists who carry out investigations appeared during the last few years and the number of investigations about cases of corruption goes up. As a result, the pressure exerted by the authorities also increases, especially at the local level. For example, the investigative journalists from Taraclia are summoned to the police after each published investigation.
Ion Bunduchi, executive director of the Electronic Press Association, said that during many years Moldova has been in the category of states with partially free press. There is only one step left towards non-free press, but an eternity is needed to move from non-free press to free press in the conditions existing in Moldova. A weird situation is witnessed in Moldova as the journalistic guild split into categories.
The news conference was given in connection with the celebration of World Press Freedom Day on May 3.
