The chairwoman of Albania’s Audiovisual Media Authority (AMA) Armela Krasniqi criticized drug companies for exploiting the pandemic through advertising during a report to Parliament, while skirting accusations about her own work and position.
On the topic of health advertising during the pandemic, Krasniqi said the broadcast time of adverts for medicine increased and there was a prevalence of hidden adverts as well.
“The situation created by the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the programming time that media service providers dedicated to health-related content. In the interest of protecting citizens from abuses with broadcasts on this topic, AMA has conducted reviews focusing on advertising for drugs, or the treatment of health issues in general,” her report said.
Krasniqi added that “the authority has asked them to avoid phenomena such as confusion or distortion of confirmed scientific results” and “to avoid debate forums only with non-experts in the field, which create uncertainty for followers.”
Other issues she noted in her report were content unsuitable for minors and hate speech and discrimination on TV.
Over the course of 2021, AMA received some 300 reports, mainly from civil society organisations, and individuals. They pertained mainly to “the violation of human rights, legal and ethical norms, violation of children’s rights, violation of dignity, as well as increased complaints against social networks, portals, and newspapers.”
As she presented her findings to the Parliamentary Committee on Education and Public Information, opposition members took the opportunity to criticize Krasniqi herself. They noted that her position as head of AMA is untenable as the law says they must be politically independent.
Meanwhile, before joining AMA in June 2021, Krasniqi was a long-time Socialist Party communications worker and aid to Prime Minister Edi Rama. This was despite calls from civil society and even the EU to wait until the opposition were in parliament, allowing for a fair vote on the position to be taken and a non-political candidate to be chosen.
AMA oversees all broadcast media in Albania but will also be responsible for supervising online media, if the government decides to push ahead with the controversial “anti-defamation package”.
Opposition members also questioned her on the recent Reporters Without Borders report, as well as Rama’s behaviour towards journalists.
“Of course there are problems, but we are obliged to implement only the legal framework we have,” she replied to the criticism.
Today, the commission is set to adopt a resolution with recommendations for improving the work of AMA.
AMA has been widely criticsed for failing to address issues of homophobic content as well as shows that incite hatred and violence. Furthermore, there are a raft of issues relating to the unfair distribution of air time during the run-up to the general election, that are yet to be resolved.
