Many people watch the television program, “Weekly Review” in Sunday evening, from Mongolian National Broadcaster (MNB) in order to catch up with what happened in politics and economy during the week. Last Sunday, the Prime Minister and Speaker of the Parliament announced that the budgetary expenditure of 2012 was increased, people over 60 years old and people with disabilities would get MNT 1 million each, tuition fee would be provided to students and many others would get various kinds of social care. They basically told people to be prepared to vote for the generous political party of theirs. Mongolia does not consist of the government only. Does not anyone else except the private sector and civil representatives have an opinion? Voice of people and civil society is becoming more and more silent in MM Agency of MNB, which claims that they are “showing public opinion” just by asking questions from random people walking on the street. The fact that MM Agency shows where the authorities went, what they said and advertises them most of the time still reminds us of the socialist era. We should know that everything the authorities say is not the absolute truth.
If MNB is really a mass media, it should reflect broad social group’s opinion on every issue. According to the law of 2005, MNB must not be a political organization. However, if we look closely at the organizational structure of MNB, there is a special unit called “MM Agency” besides Mongolian National Public Television and Mongolian National Public Radio. This special unit is the heart of MNB, which is responsible for preparing news and broadcasting it. Furthermore, this special structural unit seems like it is not public, not a radio and not a television channel. How should people of democratic Mongolia see the fact that MM Agency is still a political institution that praises the authorities no matter what? Anyways, MM Agency is still an independent media kingdom that has its special time and environment.
Television programs such as “Parliament time”, “Open government” and “Suld”, which has a special right and status that serve the President, are still aired every week during rush hours and they advertise the parliament, its members and the President and brainwash people from one angle. Also, a program called “Let’s talk” usually includes high-ranking officials and, of course, it does not reflect people’s voice or include research or information about people of Mongolia. Why is not there a one-hour television program that includes representatives from civil society? Why cannot those board members of MNB “represent” us and say something about it? MM Agency, which currently advertises politicians only and is non-public, must be independent in the first place.
The administration of MNB has gone to BBC of England, NHK of Japan to study their experiences in order to learn how exactly a mass media should operate. BBC has determined its mission as follows: to enrich people’s lives with programs and services that inform, educate and entertain. It also clearly indicates and delivers its six public purposes: sustaining citizenship and civil society, promoting education and learning, stimulating creativity and cultural excellence, representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities, bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK and delivering to the public the benefit of emerging communications technologies and services.
People are expecting MM Agency to operate in a way that BBC does, report its operations, have a organization chosen by civil society validate its report and its operations to be transparent instead of advertising the authorities financed by the government intentionally or non-intentionally. As mentioned above, if they had let civil society representatives, university professors or researchers speak after the government officials released their statement, they would have said that salary had to be increased corresponding not to the view of politicians but to productivity. They would have also said that a sudden increase of salary of public servants would bring pressure upon the private sector and make Mongolia a social care allocating country where every person works for the government and creates nothing.
They would have reminded us that a government that develops its economy and encourages development means building good infrastructure, not just handing out money for free and devaluing its currency. They must not forget that people do not live by four years like politicians do – they want to be little more far-sighted. When will MM Agency stop being a political unit in an organization brainwashing people for the sake of the authorities and find its real nature and become national and public?
Translated by B.Amar