Moldova fell four places to the 76th position in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index 2016. Three north European countries head the rankings. They are Finland, Netherlands and Norway. The same “infernal trio” are in the last three positions: Turkmenistan (178th), North Korea (179th) and Eritrea (180th), IPN reports.

According to the Independent Journalism Center’s information portal media-azi.md, executive director of Reporters Without Borders Germany Christian Mihr, speaking about the trends in Chisinau, said that Moldova, which is a relatively small country, has to fight propaganda over the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The non-transparency of media ownership is the second problem faced by Moldova, which is a very spread one in the region.

“In Moldova, there are many cases when the press is effectively used to represent the interests of oligarchs, like Vladimir Plahotniuc, who owns a number of TV channels. Moldova ranks 76th in the 2016 rankings, four spots down compared with 2015,” stated the expert.

In regional comparison, media freedom in Moldova was better than in Albania (82nd), Montenegro (106th), Bulgaria (113th) and Macedonia (118th), but worse than in Bosnia (68th), Croatia (63rd), Serbia (59th), Romania (49th), and Slovenia (40th), the Index showed.

Moldova’s media are diversified but extremely polarized, like the country itself, which is characterized by chronic instability and the excessive influence of its oligarchs, RSF said.

“The editorial line of the leading media outlets correlates closely with the political and business interests of their owners. Journalistic independence and media ownership transparency are major challenges,” it added.