Skopje, 18 April 2024 – The Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services reacts most strongly against Alfa TV’s attempt at exerting pressure on the regulatory body by airing malicious information. Namely, in the edition of the show “Zaspij ako mozes” (“Fall asleep if you can”), premiered on the evening of 16 April 2024, journalist Goran Momirovski asserted, among other things, that the Agency:
- interfered in the Alfa TV’s editorial policy, and
- threatened Alfa TV informally, claiming that the latter may be closed unless it ensures “some kind of balance, which is very subjective”.
Since the beginning of the election campaign for the Presidential Elections, certain employees of Alfa TV have turned to the Agency on several occasions, seeking clarification of the provisions of the Electoral Code. Despite the facts that the Code has not been amended for years in terms of the balanced reporting obligation and that Alfa TV as a media outlet has been covering every electoral cycle, the Agency has always responded to each and every inquiry from this television outlet in a timely fashion, clarifying the legal provisions. Naturally, every broadcaster should make an independent editorial decision and the regulator emphasizes this in each instance of communication with the media.
Alfa TV complained on several occasions that the SDSM and this party’s representatives in the government had been refusing to appear in its programmes. The Agency reminded the television outlet that there are 7 candidates participating in the Presidential Elections, and 17 parties/coalitions in the Parliamentary Elections, and that, bearing this in mind, it can achieve a balance in its coverage of the campaign if it allocates equal information airtime for the former, and reports on the latter proportionally, according to the number of verified lists of candidates. After all, Alfa TV is not the only television channel that complains about being ignored by certain political entities, and the Agency will take it into account, usually when assessing the balance, if the media outlet had invited the political entities but they had decided not to take part.
At the same time, Alfa is deliberately misleading the public that the criterion according to which a broadcaster shall not have its broadcasting license renewed unless it reports in a balanced manner during an electoral process, derives from the Agency. This is not true at all, as this criterion is laid down in the Law on Audio and Audiovisual Media Services.
Unfortunately, Alfa TV has chosen to violate the professional journalistic standards and to publish malicious information, which is one of the worst forms of manipulating using information, as it is created with the clear aim of harming someone, in this particular case – the Agency.