It should be noted that the position of State Secretary is subordinate to that of the minister. The State Secretary is in effect the senior civil servant.
Garisons implied that previously there has not been enough of an evaluation of how media mergers can affect national security and the information space.
“We should evaluate these sort of deals before they happen, looking at if and how they impact national security. The services offered by national media, whether private or public, are related to national security,” said Garisons.
Amendments of the National Security Law prepared by the ministry will determine the services that are important to national security, where business deals should be more seriously scrutinized.
As previously reported, fears about the future of the Latvian Independent Television (Latvijas Neatkarīgā Televīzija, LNT) news division came to fruition November 7 when All Media Baltics Communications Manager Alise Mališko announced that all of their products will be rebranded and unified under the TV3 brand.
The Latvian Association of Journalists deemed the closing of LNT the worst event in the last ten years in the Latvian digital media sector.
