Media Helping Media

A Moldovan communications graduate has set up a Twitter service to deliver continuing news updates on the developing political situation in the country. Mihai Moscovici, a 25-year old from Chisinau, the Moldovan capital, says there was a need for a reliable information service in English to inform those inside and outside the country about current events in Moldova, and to ensure the continued flow of free speech.

Mihai Moscovici says he decided to set up an English-language Twitter community for the country because Twitter, although quickly emerging as an important communications tool, is still developing.

"Everyone was tweeting in Romanian. Somebody needs to broadcast news in English about what is going on in Moldova," he said.

So Moscovici and his friends came up with a Twitter tag #pman which is an acronym for the Chisinau central square in Romanian, ‘Piata Marii Adunari Nationale’. Click here for his Twitter page.

Some international broadcasters are offering limited reporting from Chisnau, and Moscovici feared that this would mean that the developing political story would go untold.

Moscovici’s tweets are a step forward in the area of the dissemination of information and freedom of speech.

I spoke to Moscovici on the phone. Although busy, he was willing to discuss the current situation in Moldova.

When I asked him about what he hopes to achieve with his new Twitter service, he said his aim was not to call for protests and violence. As a journalist, he understands that a wrong word and slightest change of tone can inflame the situation. That is why Moscovici doesn’t comments in his Tweets but only provides short statements to what is happening in Chisinau.

He said it is important that Moldovans with international experience and perspectives continue to inform the public debate.

"No matter what circumstances are and no matter how hard the financial or any other crisis might hit you, your country is in need of intelligent, well-educated perspectives," he said.

Moscovici’s initiative is all the more timely because of media changes currently taking place in the country.

Central TV and radio stations are currently airing music and entertainment programmes. Regional broadcasters, meanwhile, are becoming trustworthy sources of the local news and information that is largely absent on the national channels. Radio is being seen as an important information source and has a growing audience.

But Moscovici’s Twitter strategy might just become the new communication tool for the dissemination of information from Moldova to the rest of the world.