Media Deny Getting Millions from Macedonian Govt

Mainstream TV broadcasters and newspapers have hotly denied the findings of a research paper, "Public Money in Media Space", by the Journalists' Association, ZNM, which claims the government spent 7 million euro on advertisements in only three months in 2014.

The oldest and largest association of journalists in Macedonia presented the data on Thursday, insisting that the continued practice of spending millions on commissioning advertisements distorts the media market in the government's favour.

According to the research, most of the money went on several government-sponsored ad campaigns, "Promotion of Basic Family Values", "Explore Macedonia", a traffic safety campaign called "Respect Rules-Respect Life" and others.

Seven million were spent on TV outlets while 2 million went mainly to newspapers, the ZNM said.

ZNM head Naser Selmani said the research was based on a combination of official data and advertisement price lists. However, the ZNM said they had no way of checking whether some government campaigns were aired at a discount or free of charge.

The ZNM called for a special law that would ban government institutions from spending public funds on political propaganda that is not clearly in the public interest.

Three pro-government TV stations, Kanal 5, Sitel and Alfa, were listed among top beneficiaries in the last quarter of 2014, each allegedly receiving over a million euros.

The public broadcaster, Macedonian Television, MTV, was listed as receiving little less than 500,000 euro.

Another broadcaster, Alsat M, was also listed as receiving a little less than 500,000 euro, while 24 news and Telma TV reportedly received 138,000 and 88,000 thousand respectively.

Some of the TV...