AMMAN — The plight of
Jordan's print media continues despite appeals by the
Jordan Press Association (JPA) for a government intervention to save the daily and weekly newspapers under the
threat of folding due to financial difficulties.
اضافة اعلان
On Wednesday, head of the JPA
Rakan Saaideh told Al-Mamlaka TV that newspapers' financial situation has been
deteriorating for the past years despite several appeals by the JPA for the
government to take action, criticizing subsequent governments for lack of a
clear vision to address the financial hardships that newspapers continue to
face.
JPA’s vice president, Jamal Ishteiwi also
renewed calls on the government to take steps to save the print media, saying
"the financial crisis of newspapers has been known to this government and to
previous ones, yet no decisions were taken on the ground”.
He said the JPA has presented a number of
proposals that could help rectify the situation, including raising the price of
government advertising and tender announcements to meet market price, noting
that the party that covers the cost of the tender announcement is the one to be
awarded the tender.
He said another proposal
is to strike a direct agreement between the
Ministry of Justice and the JPA on
judicial advertising to avoid granting discounts to advertising agents by the
newspapers, in addition to wavering outstanding financial fines on newspapers,
exempting newspapers from tax on production inputs, establishing a content
support fund that benefits all print media, and imposing a 16 percent tax on
advertisers in social media.
Ishteiwi said the JPA will soon send a letter to
Prime Minister
Bisher Al-Khasawneh on its detailed demands and proposed
solutions that serve the interests of all the newspapers.
“While some believe that the only important
thing about newspapers is their archives, that is not true; they are still
doing their job well, especially that they have websites and employ hundreds of
Jordanian journalists, who write the content for both the newspaper and the
website, and if newspapers disappear, there will be no content on many websites
that rely on newspapers for news, and if this comes to an end, the Jordanian
media as a whole will be over,” he added.
Ishteiwi also stressed that newspapers are the
main source of news material, and "when we talk about newspapers, we talk
about Jordanian professional journalists and experts.
Editor-in-chief of Ad-Dustour Newspaper Mustafa
Rialat voiced a more optimistic opinion, saying newspapers will survive and thrive,
especially in Jordan "because they have succeeded in developing their
tools and have websites that are followed by millions of readers and enjoy a
presence on social networking sites."
Rialat lamented uneasy government measures that
have "deepened" newspapers' financial hardships, saying some of the
past governments have adversely contributed by imposing fees, taxes, and other
expenses on newspapers, whereas other governments have attempted to take some
positive measures, like raising advertising rates and using prospective advertising
revenue as collateral for the newspapers to obtain loans from the government.
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