Page 90 - bneMag Dec22

90 Opinion
bne December 2022
Getting independent news out to citizens is also challenging. Budapest residents will search out independent news online, but rural voters tend to rely much more on state-run or oligarch-dominated media. “It is really hard to reach people outside Budapest with non-government news,” Karpati said.
All state advertising is also restricted to friendly media. “The biggest advertiser is the state and this money does not go to independent sites, which distorts the market very much,” he said.
At the same time “[private companies] are afraid they will not get money from the state if they advertise in media like us”.
Finding a profitable business model in such authoritarian environments is a huge challenge, but it is also difficult in freer political systems and markets such as Slovakia and Czechia.
Matus Kostolyni, editor-in-chief of Slovak daily Dennik N, said his newspaper has been able to establish itself and expand through the support of readers who were enthused by the "great story" of the way it was founded by Sme journalists who quit when their former paper was taken over in 2014 by the controversial Penta financial group. "We were lucky to have the story behind us. It was why people started to read us," said Kostolyni.
Moreover, resistance from the remaining Sme journalists eventually forced Penta to exit in 2021. "Sme survived pressure from the oligarchs. They pulled out of the paper because the paper was against them. It was a happy ending. We have two quality papers out of one."
However, for most media securing funding is a constant struggle that is only getting harder.
“The biggest challenge for Czech private media is that we have not found a profitable model,” said Andrea Prochazkova, deputy editor in chief of Respekt, the biggest weekly news magazine, which is owned by Czech-born tycoon Zdenek Bakala.
She pointed out that there is no tradition of paying for
online news in Czechia, and that private news media have to compete not only with CT’s online site, but also a news site funded by the country’s leading browser, Seznam. The current cost of living crisis is leading to rising costs and cancelled subscriptions, Prachazkova said.
“It is much harder to persuade readers to pay for news,” she said. "Everyone in Czech private media is seeing falling numbers.”
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are only talking at each other. Another conflict is looming
Bruce Pannier
Aweek ago, Kyrgyzstan’s security chief, Kamchybek Tashiyev, posted photos on Facebook of himself admiring a model of a Turkish-made Aksungur military drone. The message, in English, “Now ‘Aksungur’ is ours too,” was written above the photo.
A picture truly can say a 1,000 words sometimes – this particular picture was meant to, all at once, reassure Kyrgyz citizens, warn Tajik authorities and send the message that if another battle breaks out along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border, it will be more deadly than the last confrontation.
And the current mood in the two countries suggests that there will indeed be a next time.
The Kyrgyz and Tajik militaries fought each other in late April 2021 and again in mid-September this year. There have been tensions along the two countries’ frontier for many years.
Ten years ago, when the tensions boiled over, the result was villagers on both sides of the border throwing sticks and
www.bne.eu
stones at each other. During the four-day war in September, there were exchanges of mortar and artillery fire, Tajik rockets landed near the airport in Kyrgyzstan’s provincial capital Batken and Bayraktar drones that Kyrgyzstan purchased from Turkey in 2021, following the April Kyrgyz-Tajik conflict, were used against targets in Tajikistan.
In another sign of how the armed exchanges have escalated, in the latest showdown at least 134 people were killed in less than 72 hours, compared to the 54 killed in the April 28-30, 2021 fighting.
There have been dozens of incidents along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border in the past 10 years. The root of the problem is border areas that are still not demarcated, more than 30 years after the two post-Soviet countries became independent.
In the past, when there were clashes, local officials from both countries usually quickly arrived to defuse tensions. They were then followed by higher-ranking officials who quickly arranged a truce and implemented measures to alleviate tensions.