The Government’s propaganda Minister Robert Popovski announced that media outlets who want to apply for subsidies offered to companies because of the coronavirus linked economic downturn will have to meet a set of criteria that will be judged by the Government.
Popovski said that online media outlets will need to have a verifiable office, staff, address and to transparently declare their ownership structure. This hints at a renewed attempt by the Government to play favorites, such as the attempt to ban online outlets declared as “unprofessional” by a few of the journalist associations from reporting from Government press conferences at the start of the coronavirus epidemic.
Similar vague standards under which the Government would be able to dispute the staff or the ownership structure of critical media outlets could be used to selectively distribute funding in the run up to the elections. The SDSM led Government is also trying to curry favor with the big TV stations by introducing a rule that will restrict cable operators from broadcasting foreign programs – a long stated goal of the five major televisions in Macedonia. While in the opposition, SDSM insisted that any form of public financial support for media outlets is a major affront to democracy, but with the elections approaching the ruling party has thrown its declared principles out the window.
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