Editor-in-chief of “Sovetskaya Belorussiya” Yakubovich to be main “advisor” for mass media
- 6.11.2008, 13:10
Belarusian government has approved the public coordinating council in the sphere of mass media. The editor-in-chief of pro-regime newspaper “Sovetskaya Belorussiya” Pavel Yakubovich is to become its chairman.
The decree of the Council of Ministers #1625 of October 29, 2008 is to come into operation on February 8, 2009, BelaPAN agency informs with the reference to the National Legal portal.
The editor-in-chief of the “Sovetskaya Belorussiya” Pavel Yakubovich has been appointed the chairman of the council, and its secretary is the consultant of the legal department of the legal directorate of the Information Ministry Viktoryja Myaleshka.
The council also includes the deputy chairman of the board of directors “Second National Channel” Andrei Bass, the director of the legal directorate of the Information Ministry Liliya Bohdan, Belarusian State University Journalism faculty dean Natalya Dovnar, first deputy director of CJSC “Stolichnoe televidenie” Viktar Dudko, the executive director of the Telecommunications branch association Syarhei Kazannikau, the chairman of the public association “Belarusian Union of Journalists” Anatol Lemyashonak, first deputy chairman of the National State TV and Radio Company Alyaksandr Salamakha, editors-in-chief of “Argumenty I fakty” in belarus Ihar Sakalou and “Maladzechanskaya Gazeta” Alyaksandr Khazyain, a member of the public association “Union of publishers and distributors of press” Alyaksandr Chahora.
The council has been created in line with the law “On mass media” adopted on July 17, 2008. In line with the decree of the Council of Ministers, the council is “the public consultative and coordinating organ, and is created with the aim to realize and defend constitutional rights of citizens for freedom of receiving and dissemination of information”.
The main goals of the public association are: coordination of interaction of the state administration organs, public associations and other organisations, who are carrying out their activities in the sphere of mass informing; ensuring “right application of the Law on mass media and other laws in the sphere of news media”; “considering controversial issues which emerge when the law on mass media is applied”.
As analysts have predicted, neither representatives of the Belarusian Association of Journalists nor heads of independent mass media have become members of the council.