Alexandru Dorogan appointed Radio Moldova director

Alexandru Dorogan on Saturday (Feb.6) was elected as director of the national radio station, Radio Moldova, from among 10 candidates for the job, Info-Prim Neo reports.

Dorogan was elected by the Supervisory Board of the national broadcasting company TeleRadio-Moldova, following three rounds of voting.

Alexandru Dorogan is the chairman of the media NGO Association of Electronic Press (APEL). Between 1974 and 1997 he served in different posts at Radio Moldova, including general director between 1991 and 1997. Afterward he became head of Chisinau's municipal Public Relations Department, which founded the radio station Antena C, the television channel Euro TV Chisinau, the news agency Info-Prim, the newspaper Capitala, the magazine Capitala, and the publishing house Chisinau-Prim.

Other previous activities include: national expert in the task-force of the Mass-Media Division of the Human Rights Committee of the Council of Europe; member of the Moldovan Theaters' Union, member of TeleRadio's Supervisory Board.

Alexandru Dorogan was involved as director and member in multiple projects implemented by APEL from 1999 to 2010, including the project titled “Monitoring the presence of political/electoral actors on the main television channels in the pre-electoral, electoral and post-electoral period of the 2009 parliamentary elections”, implemented in 2008-2009 with the support of the European Commission's Delegation in Moldova. At present APEL is implementing the project titled “Developing the broadcasting sector by improving the national regulation framework”, financed by the Soros-Moldova Foundation.

Other candidates that sought election to the post were Oleg Brega, Serghei Scinteian, Eduard Maciac, Oleg Grajdean, Vlad Turcanu, Ecaterina Stratan, Ion Mazur, Marin Alla,
and Angela Sirbu.

Although the Board planned today to appoint a director for Moldova 1 as well, the issue had to be postponed under a decision by the Court of Appeals, which is hearing the appeal of the dismissed director, Adela Railean.

Yesterday the Board appointed Constantin Marin, dean of the State University's Journalism Department, as president of TeleRadio-Moldova.

At the end of last year, the Supervisory Board discharged the top three executives of the national broadcasting company. The decision was explained on shortcomings identified by monitoring reports, including by the Council of Europe and the Electronic Press Association, namely the loss of credibility, transformation of the public broadcaster into a political instrument, infringement of the right to expression, lack of impartiality and pluralism, etc.

The sacked TeleRadio director, Valentin Todercan, dismissed the accusations as political retaliation and promised to appeal the decision in court. Later, the Court of Appeals accepted the complaint submitted by Alela Railean, the director of the television channel, but rejected the appeal submitted by Todecran.