The low quality of journalistic products provided by most of the media outlets and defective communication with administrative factors are two big problems faced by the media sector of Moldova. These both have a noxious effect because they lead to summary informing or deliberate misinformation of the public by persons who declare themselves journalists, said participants in the Mass Media Forum 2016, quoted by IPN.
Executive director of the Association of Independent Press Petru Macovei said that the problems existing in the field can be solved if the authorities show openness. The public policies should stimulate the development of the press, but they do not work in Moldova. The priorities set out in the resolution of the Mass Media Forum 2015 were fulfilled to a very small extent.
The media expert also said that the regulations in the mass media sector need to be improved and discussions on the quality of the product should be held in the journalistic community. “The election campaign revealed the ugliest practices of information manipulation through the mass media for political and electoral purposes,” stated Petru Macovei, noting that the phenomenon of self-censorship and the challenges to which the journalist are exposed became more accentuated.
Head of the parliamentary commission on culture, education, research, youth, sport and mass media Vladimir Hotineanu said that for the sector to be developed, the responsibility should be borne both by the media and by Parliament. “I want to confirm that a large part of the agenda and the roadmap of the Mass Media Forum of 2015 were fulfilled. There are only several aspects that are yet to be deal with,” he stated.
Press Council member Ludmila Andronic said the mass media got into a trap that keeps them oscillating between discrediting and self-discrediting, between destruction and self-destruction. On the one hand, the mass media is a very important instrument without which a modern, democratic society is non-functional. On the other hand, it is a successful business. In this regard, it is absolutely imperative for a country that wants to follow a democratic path, as Moldova wants, to have at least one national strategy on the mass media.
