In the shadow of the war in Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova is not just facing an energy crisis and regional tensions, it is fighting a high-stakes information war. As the country eyes European Union accession, its independent media is standing on the frontlines against a well-funded machine of Russian disinformation.
According to Dumitru Tira, head of Realitatea Media Group – an independent Moldovan media organization managing TV, Radio and six web platforms and the country’s largest live broadcast network – the biggest threat to truth right now is not just propaganda. It is the financial survival of the newsrooms fighting it.
European Independent Media Publishers (EIMP) Executive Director Mihailo Jovetic joins Dumitru to discuss the realities of operating an independent newsroom in an EU candidate country, the ethical tightrope of AI use in media, and what Brussels needs to understand to support the media ecosystem in Moldova.
The need for structured financial support
Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Moldova’s media market has taken a beating, shrinking by 20 to 25 %, and a staggering 40% over the last 15 years. In the first week of the war alone, the advertising market plummeted by 70%. The human cost? Over 350 journalists have left the Moldovan media industry in the last three years.
While international donors and European institutions have stepped in, Dumitru warns that their approach needs a fundamental pivot.
“The support is coming, but it’s dedicated to niche issues,” Dumitru explains. “I would make a parallel: just as a state needs strong institutions, it is of the exact same importance to have strong media organizations”.
Instead of highly specific, project-based grants, Dumitru urges EU policymakers to fund core sustainability, development, and efficiency. With upcoming elections on the horizon, local elections next year, presidential in 2028, and parliamentary in 2029, Moldova’s independent media cannot afford to collapse. If immediate interventions are not made, several vulnerable regional and mainstream outlets could soon close their doors.
The proliferation of disinformation on mainstream social media
Dumitru notes that pro-Russian outlets, even those without traditional websites like Sputnik, are pouring massive resources into social media.
“They are managing only through Telegram, TikTok, and other social media, and they have an annual budget of a bit more than one million euros a year”, he reveals. Pro-Russian activists are increasingly deploying sophisticated AI deepfakes to attack state institutions and discredit the democratic process.
To counter this, Realitatea has had to get creative, even launching unaffiliated niche groups to slowly guide manipulated audiences back toward fact-based sources. Interestingly, while copyright disputes over AI scrapers dominate the conversation in Brussels, Dumitru sees content aggregators as a temporary tactical advantage. Realitatea actively allows some aggregators to use their content to penetrate echo chambers and reach audiences they otherwise couldn’t.
The ethical AI newsroom
Despite the chaos on social media, Realitatea is taking an ethical approach to Artificial Intelligence inside its own newsroom. After six months of developing rigorous internal procedures, their golden rule is simple: nothing is published without human oversight.
While they refuse to use AI to generate news text or video, they have embraced it as a technical tool for background research, headline generation, and visual enhancement. They even ran a highly successful experiment: an AI-voiced daily news journal affectionately named “AI Realitatea zilei” (Your Reality of the Day – a play on the Romanian word ‘realitatea’). The catch? The script was strictly written by human journalists, and the AI voice was clearly labeled for the audience.
A clear message for Brussels
As EU policymakers draft and implement sweeping initiatives like the European Democracy Shield, Dumitru has a clear and urgent message: prioritize local language content.
Thanks to aggressive advocacy from the media sector, Moldova recently adopted a mandate requiring audiovisual organizations to produce at least 50% of their content in the Romanian language, a crucial step to pushing Russian Federation content out of the market.
“We have to give an offer to our audiences, to our society, of good quality content”, Dumitru urges. “Practically, in five years, we can change 80% of all the content we have in Moldova for our citizens”.
To win the information war, Moldova doesn’t just need anti-disinformation shields; it needs a thriving, well-funded, and deeply resilient local press. For Brussels, the ask is clear: back the institutions building the truth, not just the projects fighting the lies.
About EIMP
The European Independent Media Publishers association – EIMP, is a pan-European association consisting of national associations of media publishers and individual publishers that are active in the sector of media publishing in Europe. EIMP represents innovative, independent, local and regional outlets that rely on online channels to grow and reach audiences, and promotes media pluralism and an ecosystem that fosters growth for small, independent and innovative (digital-native) media publishers. EIMP was established in 2015 when the European Commission launched its copyright reform, in order to take part in the debate and ensure the new rules support our members. EIMP represents over 2000 media outlets across Europe. In addition to voluntary membership contributions, EIMP is supported by Google. Contact: secretariat@eimp.eu