North Macedonia Web Portals Hustle for Election Ads Cash

The prospect of making a quick buck from budget money intended for election advertising has encouraged a staggering 235 web portals, many with obscure backgrounds and identities, to register at the State Electoral Commission, DIK, for a slice of the pie.

BIRN's analysis of the DIK list of web portals, published in Macedonian language, reveals that many have questionable professional standards and unclear backgrounds and ownership.

Of the 235 web portals that have registered, 92 do not reveal who the journalists and editors who work there are. Of those 92, effectively hiding their staff teams, 44 publish political news; the rest cover other topics, or have no clear theme.

Most of the portals that did disclose their journalistic teams are run by just one or two persons, it was also noticed. There are also cases where one team of journalists works in several portals.

There is no data about the owners or founders of 19 of the portals that have applied for state cash. They are registered in the United States, Panama, or in other places, by companies that conceal their true owners.

Some 50 of the portals are not even registered with the web domain .mk. Some resemble blogs rather than news sites, and have domains such as .live, .info or just .com.

The April 12 general elections are the second in North Macedonia in which the state budget will cover political party adverts in the media.

North Macedonia introduced this practice for last year's presidential elections, when 83 portals registered for the cash.

The law allows parties to apply or up to two euros for every voter who voted for them in the last elections. The state plans to reserve about 3.6 million euros for this purpose.

While it is expected that most of this...