The government promises urgent and serious media reforms

AJM representatives and European expert Peter Vanhoutte met yesterday with Minister of Information Society and Administration Damjan Manchevski and discussed the upcoming media reforms.

The president of AJM, Naser Selmani, presented urgent measures that the Government should take in order to improve the work conditions of journalists and the media in general.

Selmani urged the government to find a way to stop the practice of impunity for violence against journalists and to stop the interference of the government in the media market. In addition, he demanded deep reforms in the Macedonian Radio-Television and Media Agency, in line with the proposals of the European expert.

According to him, the training for judges and prosecutors should continue in order to have more effective implementation of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as to improve the transparency of the institutions.

Manchevski has promised that the government will organize a debate on the amendments to the law in order to give all interested parties the opportunity to announce their views on the proposed changes.

European expert Vanhoutte pointed out that the idea of merging the Agency for Media with the Agency for Electronic Communications is bad. In addition, he suggested that the Government should provide at least one percent of the budget for the financing of the MRT, because it is unrealistic to expect the public service to fulfill the obligations, without sufficient funding.