President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov commented to Kabar news agency why he is criticized by some of the country’s media.
According to him, earlier the websites received money from advertisements of Kumtor, MegaCom, Manas airport.
«When I came to power, I stopped it. Why government organizations should feed private websites? They received a minimum of 2-3 million soms,and a maximum of 20 million. I stopped it because the people’s, state money should work for the people. From that day on, everyone hates me. So they don’t want to see the good. I don’t pay attention to them,» Sadyr Japarov said.
It is worth noting that state-owned companies, solely on their own initiative, asked the media to provide them with information support, explaining this by the need to share achievements with the public. Agreements on information support with the media were terminated after the change of power in the fall of 2020. As the management of these companies explained behind the scenes, they were forced to abandon PR services after persistent recommendations from the administration of the head of state.
Journalists believe that such recommendations were made in connection with the publication of materials containing criticism of high-ranking officials. Critical publications are traditionally taken painfully on the Old Square, believing that the media do not tell enough about the achievements of the authorities.
Recall, the main task of journalists is to cover topical issues and significant topics for the majority of the population. The media mark the pain points of the country, society and the government itself, thereby helping it to solve issues and problems. Praising and advertisement is the task of PR technologists and advertising services.
Earlier, the head of the presidential press service, Daiyrbek Orunbekov, had already urged Kyrgyzstanis not to write negative news ahead of the tourist season. He posted his statement on Facebook. The official also stated that news outlets are spreading information about tragedies, aggression and crimes in order to increase the number of views. Some bloggers raise the number of subscribers by dropping the reputation of the state, making a sensation out of it.
This is not the first attempt by the authorities to fight the negative in the media (instead of fighting crime and poverty). In 2020, Kubatbek Boronov, who was then prime minister, also called for writing positive news, saying that this would affect the psychological state of citizens.
Even earlier, in 2018, Akylbek Japarov, being a deputy of the Parliament, proposed to ban the publication of negative news in Russian and on the Internet in order to attract foreign tourists to Kyrgyzstan.
