Politicians must stop labeling media

The Association of Journalists of Macedonia believes that the speech of the President of VMRO-DPMNE, Hristian Mickoski, in which a certain media was labeled, is unreasonable and unacceptable for a leader of a political party.

Mickoski, during the campaign rally in Krushevo said that SDSM activated its expensive paid editors and media in order to publish fake polls. Mickoski’s accusations coincided with the publication of the TV Telma poll on presidential candidates. Such public appearances of politicians are unacceptable and pose a direct threat to the work and editorial independence of the media and serve to discredit the way they work and report.

We call the leadership of the political party VMRO-DPMNE to apologize to TV Telma and in future to ensure that neither the media nor the journalists are labeled, because that can only worsen the state of freedom of expression in the country, and such a narrative may spark attacks on journalists, cameramen and photo-reporters working in the field.

We remind that if the politicians or anyone else has any remarks about the way in which the media reports, they can submit complaints to the media self-regulatory bodies, to the Council of Honor at the AJM and the Council of Media Ethics in Macedonia. We also remind the media reporting on the pre-election campaign that they should respect the Code of Journalists and publish reliable and accurate information.