Skopje, 3 March 2023 (MIA) – The Media Information Agency (MIA) and the OSCE Mission to Skopje signed Friday a Memorandum of Understanding aimed at strengthening independent journalism by initiating the process of drafting a special law on MIA, which would define the agency's role in North Macedonia’s media landscape.
 
The Memorandum was signed by the Head of the OSCE Mission to Skopje, Kilian Wahl and MIA director Dragan Antonovski.

The Mission’s support is aimed at strengthening MIA’s capacities by improving its functional independence and ensuring that it is sufficiently resourced, so that the citizens of North Macedonia continue to receive neutral and unbiased news. This will in turn improve the Agency’s long-term sustainability.

“Apart from its staff, the freedom of media, independence, and professionalism also depend on their financial stability, especially the predictability of the budgets and their sustainability,” said Antonovski at the signing ceremony.
 
He noted that MIA has demonstrated that it has an indispensable role in the media landscape of North Macedonia, as a pillar of verified and accurate information, but, Antonovski added, in order for us to remain on that path we need a real legal media basis and functionality.

“The new age brings new challenges, OSCE has already helped us develop multimedia reporting, of which we are proud and which enriched the content MIA offers to its users. Now we are moving towards new challenges of direct communication between the agencies in the region and with the public, which has great potential but is also an enormous challenge, especially since the public, in search for accurate information, is more likely to turn towards media it doesn’t really trust,” said Antonovski.

He stressed that another challenge is ensuring MIA becomes a recognizable brand seen by the public as a safe source of information, how to transform the content it produces in order to meet the demands of social networks and online media, while also retaining the basic standards of the profession and agency journalism.

“How do we ensure that the content we publish on the internet does not threaten the basic function of the agency – the sale of services to other media? But to tackle all these challenges, first and foremost we need financial stability, predictability and professional sustainability above all, which we think we will receive if we define the role of the Media Information Agency with a special law,” said Antonovski.

In his address, Ambassador Wahl touched upon the importance of free and independent media for all democratic countries.

“Free and independent media is vital for a functional and healthy democracy,” said Wahl at the signing ceremony.
 
He stressed that journalists are indispensable in providing neutral and unbiased reporting, that is topical, supported by facts, timely and accurate.

“We need this more than even in a world that is increasingly dominated by fake news and disinformation,” said Wahl.

Ambassador Wahl had a chance to visit MIA’s newsrooms and get acquainted with the work of the journalists and media workers at the Agency. ad/sk/