Skopje, 5 January 2023 (MIA) – The Association of Journalists of Macedonia (AJM) reacted Thursday to the decision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) to spend public money in order to promote the country’s OSCE Chairpersonship in private media.

In a press release, AJM said that according to publicly available information the MFA will spend around EUR 100,000 on promotional activities related to the OSCE Chairpersonship, for which it has signed an agreement with a private marketing company.

“We would like to note that this decision from the MFA goes directly against the previous government decision dated August 22, 2017, which practically placed a moratorium on government ads in private media. That decision, supplemented by the active legal ban on government publicity campaigns, instructs all state administration bodies, as well as the local self-government units, to stop advertising themselves on commercial TV channels and radio stations, daily and weekly newspapers, billboards, websites etc.,” the AJM said.

The Association warned that the practice of paying for government media campaigns with the money of the citizens, apart from being illegal and contrary to previous government decisions, may also encourage other public institutions to do the same, which would further damage the fragile media market.

“This expensive and selective way of buying media space through government campaigns cannot be considered support for the media, but an attempt to corrupt them and, at the same time, promote political propaganda to the detriment of the public interest,” the Association said in the press release. ad/nn/