The City Hall of Chisinau municipality sorts out the list of mass media to which it emails information regarding the activity of local authorities. At the same time, head of PR Department (PRD) Svetlana Frunza says the list of recipients was not trimmed. Info-Prim Neo News Agency (IPN) was excluded from this list as from November 7, without prior notice about the reasons of this action. The Agency’s numerous requests to eliminate the irregularities gave no result, as Svetlana Frunza maintained that it must have been a technical glitch in the Agency’s network and that the City Hall was sending press releases to IPN on a regular basis, as well as to other recipients. At the same time, the civil servant stressed that PRD “receives all the press releases coming from Info-Prim Neo”. Info-Prim Neo reporter learned that PRD disseminates information to press bodies selectively, having four lists of addresses at least, at which the releases are delivered depending on the reasons the City Hall has. IPN is missing from all of them, as well as “Ziarul de Garda” newspaper (ZG) does. It was also excluded from the lists after it had benefited from the respective releases for a long time. Requested by Info-Prim Neo, “ZG” director Alina Radu said that the City Hall had excluded the newspaper from the list of recipients back in September, for unknown reasons. According to Alina Radu, the press releases were coming on a regular basis until then, their absence being qualified by the editorial staff as a result of the personnel reorganization in the PRD. Requested by the Agency, Svetlana Frunza stated that Info-Prim Neo is included in the list of recipients and that all the releases are delivered to it exactly as to other media institutions. When she was told that the lists of recipients are available to the IPN reporter and that the Agency’s address is not included in them, the civil servant – who is paid from public money to disseminate public information about the City Hall’s and municipal Council’s activity – answered: “If you know better, what can I do?”. According to experts asked by Info-Prim Neo to comment on the situation, the limitation of access to information of public concern to press organisations that local authorities find inconvenient should be regarded as part of the process of annihilating the municipal mass media. Last week, PCRM and PPCD factions in the Chisinau Municipal Council voted on putting the Radio Antena C and Euro TV Chisinau stations for auction.
Chisinau’s City Hall sorts out information of public concern and fools Media
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gln 04.12.06 alina radu.mp3
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gln 04.12.06 frunza.mp3
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