The Association of Journalists of Macedonia has reacted against the latest amendments to the Law on Audio and Audio-Visual Services (LAAS) and the Election Code, that were passed on the 4th of February in a short notice by the Parliament without prior consultations with the journalist community.
“The amendments to the LAAS, that refer to Article 102 of the section that refers to bans on advertising, allow for the public institutions on a central and local level to continue with the financing of the radio diffusers if they have signed agreements for cooperation that are valid, even after this law enters into force. This leaves space for this Article to be easily misused and public funds to be paid for in the future to media despite the declared ban. We remind that the same AJN also criticized the Article of the Law on amendments dated from 31.12.2018, where according to the new definition the public institutions mustn’t plan funds for private media, but not to have a strict ban for the use of public assets in the media. This will leave a possibility for the clientelistic relation between the central and the local government towards the media to continue especially taking into account that no fine is determined for the violation of this article” states AJN’s press release.
