Pauliuk Bykouski: Reduction in the number of national papers can worsen their quality

Reduced administration costs on social and political editions can cause journalist staff cut, and that will reduce the diversity of subject areas.

This opinion was shared to the EuroBelarus Information Service by the media-expert Pauliuk Bykouski.

The day before Minister of Information of Belarus Aleh Praliaskouski in his interview to the “Belarusan thought” magazine declared about the necessity of optimization of the republican published media, at the same time suggesting relying on the “Soviet Belarus” paper. According to the minister, five daily state mass political papers for our country is too much, all the more so the events in these editions are often covered in the same way. Does it mean that there will be one big “Sovbelia”?

As Pauliuk Bykouski has explained, the matter is not that there will be one paper, but that several holding companies that publish lots of different papers will appear. Formation of holding was approved in Belarus for cultural and literary edition. Thus, the information holding company (publishing house) on the basis of “Zviazda” newspaper has already been formed.

As the Minister of Information has reported, at the first stage optimization of republican papers’ office will concern organization and financial know-how: integration of the administrative machine, creation of common Marketing Service for republican papers, as well as an account and a legal department, i.e. the creation of unitary juridical entity is planned. At the second stage it will be necessary to implement an effective decision concerning creative work of the editorial office. Still no one will be sacked, the journalists won’t be resented.

- I cannot estimate how efficient this measure was, but it allowed cutting down the expenses on these editions’ administration: at least they can have common accounts department, - noted Pauliuk Bykouski. – What concerns the following steps, read by the Minister of Information and other officials, the talk is more likely to be about administrative expenses.  But after that staff reduction of certain editions can follow. For instance, “Zviazda” newspaper publishes “Chyrvonaja zmena” newspaper. And “Zviazda” can easily publish “Chyrvonaja zmena” without people from the paper as such. It is possible that the expenses on the staff maintenance will be thereby reduced. But this information isn’t publicly available. The officials reject that it will happen. Only practice will show how all will happen in reality.

A media-expert is not sure about the staff reduction that will necessarily affect the maintenance of the editions if an independent journalist staff remains. “The increase of the informative component, taken from BelTA in the nationwide Mass Media is more likely to happen. When one and the same journalist writes to several editions at the same time, even if he tries to write in different manners, anyway he is more likely to write something similar. And it means that the subject diversity will decrease”, - said Pauliuk Bykouski.

The problem of optimization of the regional press is in on the agenda, too. The situation with the regional papers in majority of cases is dismal. Their circulation makes up from one and a half up to several thousand at best. Regional press cannot be bought in newsstands and they are spread only by subscription as a rule.

The Minister of Information declared that “There will be no radical steps there, of course – regional and city newspapers will remain. But certain changes are brewing, their necessity has become obvious. Thus, for optimization purposes one editorial office of the regional popular political paper should be left”.

According to Pauliuk Bykouski, the funds provided for the maintenance of the regional press are not that big as few people work there. The integration process of the local radio and local paper has already taken place. To reduce staff further is merely difficult. And on the whole, staff shortage is observed in regional press; it always looks forward to job placement of the students from Journalist Institute. ‘I don’t think that there is a threat of closure for the regional press, as otherwise local body will disappear, and they will never agree to that”, - assumes the media-expert.