Skopje, 14 December 2023 (MIA) - The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, (BIRN) in collaboration with the Global Media Registry (GMR), promoted the launch of a media ownership database in Skopje on Thursday, aiming to answer the question of who owns media.

BIRN country director Ana Petrusheva explained their team worked on the database for almost six months using GMR's methodology, trying to answer the questions of who owns the media, how people can assess reliable content, and how can journalist produce quality work if they do not know who controls the media they work for.

"North Macedonia has a problem when it comes to assessment because there is either partial or unreliable data. Therefore, we used GMR's methodology in the selection of media for the database," Petrusheva said.

The team mostly used data from the largest television networks according to the register - five national, plus a public broadcaster, as well as the largest cable and satellite TV.

"The choice was easy to make when it comes to print media and radio stations because they are scarce. The only criteria we had was that they needed to be national and have informative content. We chose five radio stations and five print media," Petrusheva added.

She stressed that citizens should know where they get their information from, including everyone inside and outside the country who wants concrete data.

European Union Ambassador David Geer said that every citizen has the right to know who controls the media they consume, who shapes the agenda and decides which sources are relevant.

"It does not mean that every owner necessarily interferes in the news, but it is important that there is clarity and transparency for citizens and readers. We fully support BIRN and GMR and look forward to using the database as a useful tool for the wider community," noted Geer.

Association of Journalists of Macedonia Executive Director, Dragan Sekulovski, spoke about public interest campaigns, pointing out that they received information from the Government that this year will only allocate Mden 10 million.

"With regard to the proposed amendments to public interest campaigns in Parliament, I can say that the political will has changed a little, which gives us the ambition that the Parliament will not vote on the draft law. At the end of the day, we hope that MPs are reasonable and vote against it," Sekulovski said.

More than 30 media (print, online, radio and TV) were selected for the media ownership project based on their impact and informative content.

The media ownership database is part of a larger project that, with EU support, was implemented in all Balkan countries using identical methodology designed by GMR, which has been operating independently since 2021.

The database will be available in Macedonian, Albanian and English languages. ssh/ik/

Photo: MIA