The state of the press in the Republic of Moldova worsened in the course of 2017. The State of Press Freedom Index 2017 for Moldova, launched by the Independent Journalism Center, shows a value of 23.69, down 2.97 on 2016. The report contains the chronology of the main events of the period that had a direct or indirect impact on the situation of the media, IPN reports.
The state of the media is analyzed based on seven relevant indicators. One of them is the legal framework for regulating the activity of the mass media, which was in regression. The situation is the worst as regards the discretionary implementation of the legislation or even its non-implementation by the competent bodies. The decisions taken by key institutions for developing the media sector were often politically influenced. The real concentration of media ownership and unfair competition on the media and advertising markets continued to be witnessed.
The political context was another analyzed indicator. It was determined that the media ownership is excessively concentrated in the hands of politicians or their representatives who massively use the media outlets as instruments for political manipulation and for discrediting political opponents. The independent mass media that promoted another position than that of the government faced different kinds of pressure. This favored the manipulation and propaganda through media outlets controlled by the ruling parties.
The assessment of the economic environment also showed a serious situation given the financial dependence of some of the media outlets on parties, the underdeveloped advertising market that is concentrated in the capital city and is monopolized, the lack of a credible audience assessor, etc. There are few economically independent media outlets and this significantly affects the independence of the editorial policy in general.
The professional environment also worsened. The Faculties of Journalism train particular categories of specialists in excess and partially or fully ignore the training of other necessary categories, such as media managers, marketing specialists or sales experts. The editorial staffs are not satisfied with the qualifications of the graduates of these faculties for the reason that they have insufficient abilities to work on the spot.
The quality of journalism worsened too. The misinformation and manipulation through the media seriously intensified. The information security was not ensured as the media space was dominated by foreign information products, mainly Russian ones. The situation in the field became worse owing to the inconsistency of political decision makers and the passivity of the Broadcasting Coordination Council, which should have guaranteed the public interest in broadcasting.
The security of journalists wasn’t ensured. In 2017, there were witnessed cases of intimidation and personal insulting, threats and verbal attacks, campaigns to denigrate the inconvenient journalists, especially those who conduct investigations, discrediting and public humiliation on social networking and doubtful sites.
According to the Independent Journalism Center, the legislation regulating the activity of the mass media should be supplemented with the missing provisions and adjusted to the EU standards. There should be pursued media policies that would lead to the real de-politicization of the media sector. The political interference in the work of media outlets should be stopped and these should not be involved in political struggles and used for ideological purposes.
It is also recommended introducing norms to limit the concentration of media ownership and the anti-competition practices in the media and commercial adverting sectors. Transparency in media funding should be increased so as to reduce activity based on obscure financial resources. The training programs of education institutions should be adjusted so that they meet the needs of the mass media.
