The NGO Info-centre, with financial support from the Foundation Open Society Macedonia (FOSM), under the auspices of its “Media Mirror” programme, implements monitoring of media reporting on issues and topics related to media freedoms and freedom of expression.

This report covers the period from January 1 to February 6, 2013. The monitoring included the following media: seven daily newspapers (“Utrinski vesnik”, “Dnevnik”, “Vest”, “Večer“, “Nova Makedonija”, “Fokus” and “Den”), the central news programmes aired by seven television stations that broadcast nationally or over the satellite (24 Vesti TV, Kanal 5 TV, Sitel TV, Telma TV, MTV1, Alfa TV and AlsatM TV), and six internet news portals (Sky.mk, MKD.mk, Libertas.mk, Plusinfo.mk, Kurir.mk and A1on.mk).

The monitoring was conducted daily, depending on the actual coverage of events and topics related to media freedoms and freedom of expression in the media. The monitoring applied contents analysis of published journalistic articles and broadcast stories and reports.

The events that transpired in January and the first week of February of this year, related to the media scene in the Republic of Macedonia, as well as the analysis of the contents of media coverage of those events and developments, indicate a continued deterioration of media freedoms and freedom of expression in the country.

The types, scope and frequency of events during the short period of time covered by this analysis indicate that: The media and journalists critical of the Government are under constant pressure of the Government; the censorship is gaining in intensity while self-censorship becomes an everyday occurrence and a regular practice. The critical media disappear from the scene. Editorial offices have been forced into sudden cancelations of programmes and to receive personnel “reinforcements” with journalists coming from pro-government media. The owners, editors and journalists are being sued by state functionaries and face exorbitant demands for compensations, while some journalists and editorial offices receive threats and are forced to apologize publicly or retract and revoke stories they published or aired.

On the other hand, the pro-government media (they are a huge majority of TV stations and daily newspapers, and there are numerous pro-government internet portals and online newspapers, too) act as an instrument of the Government and are involved in a permanent attack campaign directed at their colleagues in the media critical of the Government. They publish discriminatory lists of alleged “homosexual journalists”, articles in which journalists are accused of being mercenary stooges, accuse journalists of working for SDSM. They go so far to accuse the “Soros’s foundation and the journalists it pays” to be solely responsible for the disastrous situation in the area of media freedoms, noted also in the reports of the international organisation Reporters without Borders (RSF).

It is worth noting that no representative of the Government commented on the findings presented in Reporters without Borders’ report, while the prime minister Nikola Gruevski, responded to an inquiry on that matter posted by one Member of Parliament in the Assembly Session on MPs Questions and Inquiries, that he will give his response in writing. By the time of the publication of this analysis, the public has not been informed if he gave his answer or what is the Government’s position on RSF’s Report.

In addition to the continuing attacks on the media and journalists critical of the Government, the analysis indicates that the pro-government media deviate from professional standards of journalism and completely disregard the right of the citizens to be informed and to get timely information on social and political processes and events, based on facts.

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