At the beginning of the workshop, Irina Ghelbur reviewed the problems faced by the media in the Republic of Moldova, in particular the print media, due to the crisis caused by Russia's military invasion of Ukraine. She referred to the shortage of funds, the inability of newsrooms to plan budgets properly, the limited ability to diversify sources of income and attract funds, the lack of qualified journalists, etc. "We have to put our hand on our heart and honestly admit that we don't know how to earn money, we can't hire qualified advertisers who would know how to bring money into the newsroom, because they need to be paid much better. What we do is more like amateurism. That's why we have to keep learning, go to training courses and learn, including new information technologies," she said. Despite the difficulties, there are still some development opportunities that need to be seized: "There is more and more European funding coming to us, and artificial intelligence is making its way into the information market, including the cghat.openoi.com platform, which can facilitate the work of a newsroom and save human and financial etc. resources."

Under the Crisis Support Program for Independent Newspapers, launched by API in December 2022, beneficiary newsrooms are tasked, among other things, with developing their own strategies for working in crisis situations. In the second part of the workshop, Irina Ghelbur analyzed drafts of nine documents and came up with tips and recommendations on identifying risks, assessing their impact on the media institution, and actions to be taken to mitigate them. By the end of July, the editors have to finalize and approve the documents.

During the workshop, participants talked about the steps they take to overcome the difficult situations they face. "Lately, I have been focusing on attracting grants from foreign donors, as I believe that without them the print media will not be able to survive for some time. At the same time, we are looking for new opportunities, we are continuing the subscription campaign, circulation has started to increase on behalf of subscribers from other districts, as the newspaper has changed its distribution area, becoming a national newspaper. We are constantly training journalists and advertisers," said Slava Perunov, director of Bălți SP newspaper. "We gave up the office we were renting, got a smaller one and have already saved 12,000 lei annually. Our circulation has started to increase, because we also go to villages in other districts than Orhei, we also make materials for subscribers there. We try to attract young people to work at the newspaper," added Vasile Roman, director of the newspaper Opinia Liberă in Orhei. "Today's meeting was useful and even necessary at a time when revenues are falling, the advertising market is small, prices are rising, making production even more expensive. We have problems with the distribution of the newspaper because of the exaggerated conditions imposed by Moldova Post. After today's discussion we managed to identify new solutions to the existing risks, which we will include in the strategy and action plan," added Aliona Cenusă, financial manager at Ziarul de Gardă.

The support program provides partial financial support to independent, API member newspapers to cover increased newsprint and distribution costs. The program also includes training on strategic media business planning and management in times of crisis and experience-sharing workshops.

The event was organized by API under the project "Suрроrting lndependent Moldovan Newspapers," funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (USA).