Ethics in journalism, the professionalism of the journalist, regulation as a condition for creating conditions for the media, as well as media financing are basic levers for the public to get independent, free and objective media that will stand for truth and justice in one word for the general good of the citizens. Journalism has changed a lot in the past period, even compared to the period before the 90s, and there are essential differences that determine the quality, that is, that contributed to the decline in the quality of journalism as an activity.

-At the beginning of my speech, I want to point out that I will try to make the comparison between the period before the 90s and today's situation to be an objective analysis and not to be biased. The degradation of journalism in Macedonia begins with the destruction of professionalism in the newsroom of Nova Macedonia and the Macedonian Radio Television. Basically, I see the beginning of the decline with the emergence of multi-partyism. In the social arrangement that they called single-mindedness, we abandoned everything that was good and entered into a process of insanity. It is a fact that it happened in the whole society and in numerous social areas and activities, and that means in journalism as well. The tragic situation is that after the emergence of new media in a situation of the then public demand for the fall of the monopoly in journalism, and the then heights we cannot reach today is that they also collapsed later, on the one hand and Macedonia today practically has no media that will be competitive in truth. Ethics and professionalism were absolutely present in these two journalistic conglomerates and they dictated the pace. Gross commercialization was not started. I often state my personal experience from the time of holding our collegiums in the newsroom of Nova Macedonia, if a hidden camera was installed and it was broadcast today, many people would be surprised and amazed. Such collegiums were places where the analysis of the current issue and the plan for preparation of the next issue were carried out with the presence of the largest number of editors and journalists. We have demonstrated full protection of the author's work, where we have not changed the journalist's position. This was stated by Erol Rizaov, journalist and founder of the "Nezavisen" portal.

The emergence of new forms as a result of the development of technology contributed to the rapid distribution of information in journalism, but also produced a greater level of manipulation of the truth. People have also faced fake news, as well as a lot of useless and unnecessary information.

- In my opinion, this topic is very comprehensive and the time we have for conversation will not be enough to express all possible aspects of the problem and give answers to the questions. Ethics and journalism are closely related. The future of journalism is determined by the relationship between these two areas. My experience from working in Nova Macedonia and from the participation of the collegiums at that time is that there was a real "intellectual battle" between colleagues. The journalist could not come with an arbitrary and unprepared topic, and he was obliged to explain the proposed topic. When we talk about journalism then and today there is one important difference, and that is the technology that is used, which appeared in the past years. In the meantime, new forms of media appeared and, above all, thanks to the Internet, social networks developed. Journalism got a chance to send information faster, but that technology also created conditions for certain media to manipulate the truth faster. In my opinion, a certain process of "yellowing" took place in the media, which means a decline in quality and a violation of professional standards. This was stated by journalist Mirce Jovanovski in the Utrinski Pechat show on Slobodna TV.

Watch the conversation with journalists and editors Erol Rizaov and Mirce Jovanovski in the video: