SP Bălți gives up its print edition again

The Russian-language weekly SP Bălți stopped publishing its printed version again at the beginning of this year, after returning to paper in January 2021. The decision was made due to lack of funds, Veaceslav Perunov, the founder and director of the newspaper, told Media Azi.

SP Balti had already stopped publishing the printed version in January 2020, also due to lack of funds. According to Veaceslav Perunov, the team subsequently obtained money for editing and publishing the newspaper through a grant from the European Endowment for Democracy, which ran out. Now, returning to the paper depends on accessing new grants.

The director of SP Bălți specified that the newspaper was published in 600 copies, intended mainly for elderly people who do not always have the ability or the opportunity to get information from online sources. “Our editorial office received many calls from our readers who were deeply disappointed that they would no longer be able to receive the newspaper. Now we are waiting: if we can get funding for another two years we will reappear in print, otherwise we will only stay online”, Perunov said. Moreover, in his opinion, the printed version of the newspaper is unprofitable.

In 2020, when the printing of the Russian-language weekly SP Balti stopped for the first time, Veaceslav Perunov interpreted this as rather positive than negative, arguing that the work of the editorial office would no longer be hampered by the tasks related to newspaper printing: “… we see this as an impetus for developing resources on the Internet, on social networks, and we heavily rely on developing video content and even on broadcasting our own shows and on mojo-journalism”, the press manager declared for Media Azi.