Macedonian media. Photo by: BIRN

Macedonia’s oldest and most prominent media union, the Journalists’ Association of Macedonia, ZNM, has slated the inter-party deal on the media, agreed as part of last week’s crisis deal between the main parties, saying it was insufficient and agreed without consulting reporters.

Reform of the media sector aimed at ensuring balanced reporting in the elections was one of the three urgent reform priorities pushed by the EU and US in Macedonia’s crisis talks that concluded with a deal last Wednesday.

Despite long-running concerns about government influence in the top media through the use of advertisements and other pressures on media owners, only two new items were agreed for implementation before the early elections.

The first is the formation of an ad-hoc monitoring body 100 days before the election, which will be tasked with surveying media reporting and be empowered to issue penalties for biased reporting.

ZNM head Naser Selmani says the formation of an ad-hoc body that would function within the frame of the national Media Agency – which is already tasked with monitoring media reporting – is an unnecessary complication and does too little, too late.

“We will end up with institutions torn between political party interests and influences. We won’t accept such a body and will not participate in the party consultations for its formation because we don’t want to legitimize unsustainable political solutions that won’t be in journalists’ interests,” Selmani said.

“The only logical solution is the election of a completely new council of the Media Agency to include independent professionals,” Selmani added.

The body will have five members. Four will be appointed by the four main parties in consultation with “relevant professional organizations”, the deal reads, while the fifth will be elected by a consensus among the previous four members.

The second novelty is that the opposition will appoint the head of the national broadcaster, Macedonian Radio and Television, MRTV, also 100 days before the polls.

But Selmani said this will only replace one political party henchman with another. “We need professionals there as well as independent financing,” he said.

A source from the main opposition Social Democratic Party, SDSM, who wished to stay unnamed, admit the agreed changes were not the best solution, but insisted that these are only short-term changes designed to at least partially improve media reporting in the elections.

“We were faced with a choice of either having this deal on the media or not having a deal,” the party source said. “We know that this is not a perfect solution for the dire concerns in the media sphere but we hope that once we win the elections, more thorough reforms will follow.”

Last year’s so-called Priebe Report, which forms part of EU-brokered crisis agreement that was signed last summer and reinvigorated on Wednesday, said Macedonia had “suffered from a media crisis that has become gradually worse over the last couple of years.”

The report by experts commissioned by Brussels noted that the media are too “reliant on government advertisements”, which it said produced an “atmosphere of fear” and “self censorship” among reporters.

In addition, the report noted “serious concerns over selective reporting and lack of editorial independence on the part of the Public Service Broadcaster.”

The four main parties last Wednesday renewed the crisis deal that envisages a set of urgent reforms to be implemented immediately, after which, in late August, the parties will set an election date.

Along with the media sphere, the other reforms concern cleaning up the electoral roll and inclusion of opposition ministers in the interim government to ensure free voting.