Skopje, 17 February 2023 (MIA) — Demanding better working conditions and salaries for journalists as well as higher quality of reporting criteria, the Association of Journalists of Macedonia and the Independent Union of Journalists and Media Workers staged a protest march from the Government building to the Parliament. 

AJM president Mladen Chadikovski told protesters that media laws needed to be implemented to ensure the independent work of the national broadcaster.

Unionists demand that authorities improve journalists’ safety and working conditions for local reporters nationwide. A detailed action plan to improve the media situation in the country was submitted to the government, Chadikovski said.

He also called on "ministers, directors, and politicians to stop humiliating" journalists.

"Stop the aggressive state PR, which has taken reporters’ jobs. State PR has replaced journalists, videographers and photojournalists. The government has created the largest newsroom in the country, and state institutions and their directors have a problem understanding that they are not transparent if we have to wait for days for them to respond and send a PR pamphlet for us to publish," he said.

"Local and regional media are on the brink of survival. The safety of journalists is not at the level it should be,” he said.

Freedom of the media, he added, was essential for democracy, so the country should “cement it as the strongest imperative for a fuctional state.”

Independent Union of Journalists and Media Workers president Pavle Belovski said media workers' fundamental labor rights were not respected.

“We must stand together,” Belovski said, “to continue to demand and fight for what is ours according to the law. 

“These situations can be made better only by signing collective agreements laying out the working conditions as well as both parties’ obligations and duties much more precisely.” 

“To succeed in signing collective agreements that will once and for all end this anarchy, we need dialogue, dialogue by all and victory for all,” Belovski added.

He pointed out that journalists and media workers were increasingly being attacked, insulted, beaten, and harassed. Even high political officials were insulting reporters, the union leader said.

“This needs to stop. Attacks on journalists and media workers are attacks on the public and the right of citizens to be informed,” Belovski said, adding that the protest march was organized also to raise awareness of reporters' working conditions across the country.

“March or protest – needs, demands, or criticism? No matter how we frame these questions, the answers are clear to all of us,” he continued.

“We were not silent. You spoke out when journalism was nascent in this young Republic. We were not silent even when we were beaten, harassed, imprisoned, or when we lost our jobs. 

“These giants are the ethical professionals. These giants are the laborers. They are us today. They call us media workers — from the first frame, through our sharp quills, all the way to the Enter key. These individuals stand behind the truth, free thought, and public interest,” he said. mr/