Independent Central Asian media are in a major crisis provoked by the authorities’ misunderstanding, a lack of dialogue, hybrid wars, and other global and local problems, the media experts say.
On April 29, the experts discussed institutional problems of media development in Central Asian countries during the latest analytical discussion conducted by CABAR.asia.
The expert from Kazakhstan was Adil Jalilov, the Director of the MediaNet International Centre for Journalism and the Head of Factcheck.kz, the first fact-checking resource in Central Asia. He is also a co-founder of the popular analytical media vlast.kz. Adelya Laisheva is a highly experienced media expert from Kyrgyzstan. She is the Director of the Education Centre of the Public Broadcasting Corporation and the Chairman of the Investigative Journalism Foundation of Kyrgyzstan. Tajikistan was represented by Nuriddin Karshiboev, the Chairman of the National Association of Independent Media of Tajikistan. He is the creator and co-author of a number of legislative documents in the field of media and freedom of speech and has experience in defending journalists’ rights and their professional training. Nargis Kosimova, the researcher, media expert, Doctor of Philology, and Associate Professor of the Media and Communication Faculty at the Uzbekistan State University of World Languages, spoke about the situation in Uzbekistan.
During the meeting, the experts discussed the main problems that prevent local media from developing and fulfilling their function in society as an independent institution. They discussed new challenges for media in the era of global digitalisation and social media and further steps for solving the main problems.
Kazakhstan: Public Funding Causes Problems
While noting the similar situation in all Central Asian countries, Adil Jalilov stated that Kazakh media continue their development despite the circumstances.
The state dominance in the media market is the main problem for media in Kazakhstan.
“It exceeds all possible, reasonable limits. The state’s market share should not be large to ensure balanced development. In our countries, the state dominates almost everything. They try to capture the audience’s attention with state-sponsored content, personnel training, TV, and now, even with the Internet,” he said.
5,151 media are registered in Kazakhstan, of which 3,665 are periodicals, 191 are TV channels, 84 are radio, and 933 are news agencies and online media.
The advertising market is worth approximately $170 million. Once, it reached $300 million but later, dropped due to the pandemic. Now, it regains its position. However, excessive reliance and delegation of financial and institutional problem-solving to the state hinder the development and unimpaired functioning of Kazakh media.
Therefore, social media and the Internet remain the only platforms for freedom of speech, according to Jalilov.
“I believe social media and instant messengers should be cherished and protected in our countries. If we allow our governments to control or delete the content of some unknown bloggers or anonymous channels, we will open Pandora’s box,” Adil Jalilov said.
The Situation of Independent Media Is Deteriorating in Kyrgyzstan
Earlier, Kyrgyzstan set an example of progressive media development and democracy for all Central Asian countries but now, the situation has changed. The authorities change the legislation and the pressure on independent journalists and media increases, Adelya Laisheva believes.
“Until recently, we believed we had very good legislation. There were some flaws but they were minor. Everything changed with the new government coming to power and the adoption of a new Constitution,” she said.
In 2021, a law on NGOs was adopted; it directly affected the media since many of them are registered as non-profit organisations. Under this law, additional reporting forms are created for all foreign funding. Moreover, the tax authorities do not understand themselves how to work with these forms, Laisheva believes.
“There are many duplicate articles, many incomprehensible points. The mistakes made can be a reason for criticising the media. In addition to financial issues, there are also legal ones. There is a targeted legislative attack on ‘unfavourable’ media,” she said.
In July 2021, the Jogorku Kenesh [Supreme Council] adopted the controversial Law “On Protection from Inaccurate (False) Information”, which contains vague wording and gives the authorities the right to arbitrarily block access to websites without trial.
“We were proud of the decriminalisation of defamation but the current government began charging ‘unfavourable’ media under other Articles. For example, a criminal case was opened against Kaktus.media news agency for republishing Asia Plus agency’s material about the clashes on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border under the Article 407 “Propaganda of War”, that is, distribution of any form of views, ideas, or appeals aimed at provoking aggression of one country against another or igniting a military conflict. The material reported on the armed clash on one of the sections of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border on January 27 and presented the opinions of the Tajik side. Although the republished material retained all the original data and citations, the media apologised to its readers and deleted it,” said Adelya Laisheva.
She also told about other cases that occurred during the past year, when the authorities, for various reasons, opened criminal cases against journalists who criticised their actions.
“The articles for the extremist activity and inciting ethnic hatred have become very popular. A case was opened against the director of the Next TV Company Taalai Duishembiev under this Article with an aggravating circumstance – “committed by a group of persons under a preliminary concert”. However, no one from this ‘group’ was named in two months. In addition, troll factories are actively working in our country; they are trying to discredit certain media sources and journalists on social media. Journalists’ accounts are hacked from time to time,” she said.
Laisheva told about other methods of pressure on independent media noting that the freedom of speech has significantly deteriorated in Kyrgyzstan.
The Situation in Tajikistan Is Much Worse
The situation for the media (especially independent media) development is very difficult in Tajikistan. There are no funding sources for media development; grant support from donor organisations, unfortunately, is also insufficient, said Nuriddin Karshiboev.
“I listened to colleagues from other countries and realised that, in fact, they have a much better situation than we have in Tajikistan,” he said.
The economic situation makes the advertising market in Tajikistan small and distributed among certain media players. Not all entrepreneurs, even large companies, are interested in supporting media. They believe this is fraught with consequences. They immediately will have problems with the fiscal authorities as soon as they know these companies supported media,” Karshiboev said.
One of the big problems is self-censorship among journalists.
“Unfortunately, restrictions to free speech and attempts to control the activities of media and journalists by the authorities led to a situation when certain topics are ‘forbidden’ for journalists. Nobody wants to investigate any incidents or analyse situations beyond this ‘stop line’,” he said.
Another problem, which has long been acute for journalists throughout the region, is access to information. Although there are legislative norms created to provide journalists with access to official information, according to various sources, more than half of information requests in Tajikistan remain unanswered, the Tajik expert said.
“Even the Prosecutor General’s Office, which should monitor the implementation of the legislation in the country, does not respond to the journalists’ requests. Other ministries and departments often ignore information requests. In this situation, it is very difficult for most media to win an audience. Unfortunately, as I observed, in the pursuit of quantity, some of our media support organisations forget about their sustainability,” said Karshiboev.
There are very few media outlets currently working in Tajikistan. Many have left this market. Those that appeared recently have a small coverage. Much more work has to be done to ensure their sustainability.
“Nevertheless, journalism and, in particular, independent journalism, is developing in our region despite all these difficulties. We can only hope that, after all, media support organisations will finally conclude that it is impossible to respond to some emergencies and acute issues only. It is necessary to develop independent media in our region (as most of them are on the verge of self-liquidating) so that they work, improve, and do what is expected from them,” said Nuriddin Karshiboev.
Uzbekistan: Situation Is Not Critical but Problematic
In Uzbekistan, many media have various institutional problems preventing them from fulfilling their mission, said Nargis Kosimova.
“Well, if we talk about the status of the media in Uzbekistan, as of December 2021, up to 1,683 media outlets operate in Uzbekistan. However, half of them, in fact, do not work. Just like in other republics, we have many problems,” said Nargis Kosimova.
First, the problem is that only a few media outlets have at least some weight and can positively influence certain issues. The rest of the media, especially regional ones, experience very difficult conditions, she said.
“The most important issue that prevents us from talking about full freedom of speech is, of course, financial dependence. In fact, absolutely all media, especially online media, are extremely dependent on their views. Now, selling ads is the only legal way to make a living,” she said.
While the state-owned media still receive some kind of state support, the private media, which constitute up to 60% of all media, have no other way to earn money except advertising.
“The cooperation with international organisations, with international donors in the Republic is not allowed and is prohibited. The media are not allowed to accept grants or assistance from international organisations,” Kosimova said.
The business owners or the persons close to government officials own most of the private media, which, naturally, protect only the owners’ interests.
“There are few media created by journalists and possessing some kind of international expertise and knowledge… Now, the problem of coverage of the rights of children and women has become more timely, which is very pleasing. However, we cannot talk about the investigations yet. That is, our investigative journalism is practically at a standstill. Why? Because many investigative journalists are not protected. I mean, we have very good laws. There are seven laws on the media; everything is clearly described there. However, when it comes to practice, then, of course, a journalist is left without protection. The media owner or editor-in-chief would rather say goodbye to such a journalist than defend him in court,” said Nargis Kosimova.
According to her, another problem is self-censorship and internal censorship in editorial offices, where the editors-in-chief are older people.
“Online media are more open; they publish critical materials. After 2016, fortunately, there is a tendency in media – they began to criticise. Before that, it was not allowed to criticise and even analyse some problems. Now, the media, bloggers, and social media users are criticising some situations. Certain problems are raised and solved; the media’s voice is heard. I like it a lot,” she said.
Nargis Kosimova said that the journalist profession is becoming non-prestigious due to low wages.
“Over the past year, 10 journalism faculties and one Journalism and Mass Communications University have been opened in Uzbekistan. However, only about 30% of all graduates choose journalism as their profession. Why? First, this is a low-paid job. Only large media websites can pay a salary of 5-6 million, this is about $500.”
Conclusions and Recommendations
Noting the current difficult situation for all independent media in the Central Asian region, the experts proposed a set of measures that, in their opinion, can improve the situation:
- To improve communications and continue building a dialogue between the authorities and independent media;
- “To continue communicating with the authorities, no matter what, to have a constructive dialogue to convince, explore, show, and prove. If we do not come to an agreement, we will become enemies,” Adelya Laisheva;
- To raise the media’s status;
- To improve the training of qualified media personnel using modern technologies;
- To improve the technical equipment of universities and journalism faculties;
- To empower the media, to improve the literacy of both ordinary journalists and managers;
- To train journalists on legal and information security issues;
- The media should very carefully develop internal policies and necessary documents, and introduce them into employees’ work; to develop step-by-step instructions on how to act in certain situations.