Transparency of media ownership: what is left for us?

Ion Bunduchi, Executive Director of the Association of Electronic Press

For about 15 years now, we have been insistently talking about transparency of media ownership. And what have we actually done? What is left for us to do?

…My mother’s father, year after year, sowed corn from the hill near the house to the far end of the garden. And the corn grew taller than the eaves of the house. And, around this time, when he passed by and we asked him how much was left to harvest the corn, he would say: ‘It’s about here, only the middle and the edges are left.’

‘It’s about here’ with the transparency of ownership as well…

What is transparency good for? A friend of mine, now an important man fond of slogans, would say: ‘That’s what the standards require.’ A good answer, but flawed. As if we were doing something just to please someone. We should do what is good for us! Standards are not to be learned by heart – they clutter the mind. Standards are useful only when they don’t remain on flags, but descend among us, becoming a natural part of us – an ordinary habit. Only then do they carry real weight, because they have fruitful practices behind them. There are many practices, but only a few bring results.

The greatness and the burden of the media is that it must be both attractive and useful. Making it attractive isn’t hard – jokes catch on quickly and sell well. But not now, because I have a toothache. Making it useful isn’t hard either – fill it with advice. But not now, I’m in the mood for jokes. It’s hard to match the place and time for a joke and advice. There are jokes and jokes. There are advice and advice. A joke can hurt. An advice can kill. And look, I made this play of words to get to the heart of the matter: I’m going to look for the joke that doesn’t hurt; I’m going to follow the advice that doesn’t kill. And for that, I have to trust the person who tells me the joke and the person who gives me the advice.

I can’t enter into a covenant with the press without trust. That’s the currency of exchange. It’s like in marriage: you know each other well, you decide to stay or to leave.

If the press doesn’t tell me who the boss is, who the reporters are, where I can find them or how much money they make, that puts me on guard. Why would they have anything to hide from me?! How can I follow their advice, even if I need it?! Not at all. Lack of trust is the hardest verdict for any social institution, including the press. A human community doesn’t need something or someone it doesn’t trust.

I have no obligations to the press, I don’t owe it anything. It seeks dialogue with me. And if it does so wisely and decently, I respond by paying a subscription, so it has salaries. Subscription in exchange for trust. It’s normal to pay a subscription for a newspaper that I trust. It’s abnormal to pay for a newspaper that I suspect, for example, of laundering dirty money. A newspaper that lives off my money, even tacitly, represents me. The other one does not. And it should not even be called a newspaper. It should be classified, from the outset, as a propagandist or business operator, because there are two great temptations for those with a weak spirit – politics and economics. It shouldn’t put on the mask of the press. Propaganda and PR – whether they are gray, white or black – are also professions, but they shouldn’t think they’re press. They shouldn’t be mixed with the press. And they shouldn’t find out that they’re not press after they’ve paid for a subscription. If those with TUX had known that it was a pyramid scam, would they still have shaken hands with it!? Who would want to get involved with a newspaper to find out that it’s a scam after paying money?!

This is what the standards are about – from the time they started to take shape until today, whether we find them scattered in our laws or gathered in the new European ones. Standards, the press is told, should disclose:

• what is your name, where do you live and what contact details do you have;
• who is the owner and what contact details does he/she have;
• what effective ownership does he/she hold;
• who holds indirect control or a significant interest in the media outlet;
• who else owns more than 5% of shares;
• what interests does the owner have in other I media outlets;
• what interests does the owner have in non-media outlet;
• what changes may occur in ownership and when, whether through merger or acquisition;
• what are the sources of income for what you do in the media.

Standards… They sound somewhat pompous and pretentious for things that are actually so natural that the legislator should not even think of interfering, let alone come in with a bulldozer into the press field. But it does. When someone behaves recklessly, someone else must intervene—it is Newton’s third law, with one specification: the state intervenes, and then the reaction force is, as a rule, not equal to the action force. Because if you shake hands with the state, it may bite your hand up to the elbow.

Something from history, if it helps

For a long time, our legislation required the media to disclose who the founder was. We didn’t find out much. If the founder is an unknown company, owned by another equally unknown company, what is the use of this information?

In 2010, there was a provision, among the amendments to the Electoral Code, requiring holders of radio/TV licenses to disclose to the Audiovisual Council not the founder(s), but the owner(s). And? Nothing! The CA pretended not to know the new provisions (but perhaps it simply didn’t know them, because the law wasn’t really at the centre of attention), and the license holders, out of inertia, continued to behave as before.

Time passed, the Audiovisual Code was amended and the license holders had to disclose the owner. But, again, we didn’t find out much. Do you remember how a head of a media holding once declared that he was the owner of two television stations, while for two others he had previously owned, the owner was listed as his adviser. Revolution! In fact, we found out what we already knew – there is a holding without owner. De facto concentration exists, de jure it does not. Concentration is harmful, because it suffocates pluralism and media independence. But without pluralism and independence, the media is useful to anyone, except society.

It should be noted: until 2022, the CA had never placed the legal regime of ownership in the audiovisual sector on the agenda of its public meetings, even though since January 2019 a new law with clear anti-concentration rules had already been in force. Only the current CA has looked into the subject and done what it could – it identified the beneficial owners, shed light on the funding sources, monitors the ownership regime and, when someone steps wrongly, it applies sanctions.

The CA can do a lot, but not everything. It has also required the involvement of the Strategic Investment Council (because investments in audiovisual media are, according to the law, important for national security), since the CA cannot itself investigate who and where wants to invest in the sector. The effort of the Competition Council is also needed, because unfair competition is harmful not only in the oil market, but also in advertising and media content market. Therefore, joint and coordinated efforts are and remain necessary. However, coordination has not, so far, become a hallmark of state institutions.

But this happens elsewhere too. The European Union, concerned about the deterioration of media pluralism and independence in Europe (Italy and Hungary being the most well-known examples, where media systems are threatened by political control), attempted in 2009 to vote on a draft Directive establishing standards for media pluralism, the right to information, and public access to information. The draft failed in the European Parliament by a difference of just 3 votes. It took many years before the European Media Freedom Act was finally adopted and entered into force in August 2025, with transparency of ownership placed at its core.

Where

So far, in our country, all efforts, both legislative and practical ones, have covered only the audiovisual sector. That is not insignificant, but it is not enough. The written and online press still remain unregulated. It is worth appreciating that a part of this press voluntarily adopts transparency standards and maintains an honest relationship with its audience, without being legally compelled to do so. But it is only part of the press.

This year, alongside the drafting of amendments/supplements to the Code of Audiovisual Media Services (CAMS), already adopted by Parliament, a draft new press law was also developed, though it has not yet entered the legislative procedure. Although the draft of the new law would strengthen the transparency of ownership, it does not provide solutions for the so-called cross-ownership – a situation in which a person or a company has control over different types of media (television, print media, radio, online). The way legislation is currently structured, both in our country and in most European states, prevents a comprehensive analysis of cross-ownership and does not require disclosure of such information in a way accessible to the public.

The teams of experts who worked on the development of the amendments/supplements to the CAMS and the draft press law have reached to the conclusion and idea that, in fact, a single law, a single code of media services is needed that would regulate both the audiovisual, the print and online media. And the person responsible for implementation should be a Media Council that would also keep a register of all media outlets and their beneficial owners, to the extent that cross-ownership can be analyzed/evaluated, including, for decisions to be made accordingly. This would provide a unified approach to the sector, eliminate current inequalities where some actors are regulated while others are not, and bring more transparency to ownership structures, to the benefit of media pluralism and independence, and, ultimately, to the benefit of the citizen and society. Moreover, there would be no need for a new institution with new staff and salaries to assess cross-ownership in the media and act accordingly. After all, standards are minimum requirements that must be met. But who said that more cannot be done?! That, if we aspire to join a community, it would be wise not to remain just a country devouring standards, but to also become a country generating standards.

The idea of ​​a single media code, if it becomes properly enforced law, might further cut out the puppeteers of ownership from the middle and the edges.

The article was written within the project “Resilient Media, Informed Voters: Safeguarding Moldova’s Elections from Disinformation”, funded by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Moldova. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the donor.