newsmaker.md
The Newsmaker.md portal was founded in August 2014 by journalist Vladimir Soloviov after the online publication Kommersant's Moldovan branch in Moldova, which he headed, was closed. In 2022, the ownership structure of the company running the portal was changed, with the project continuing to be run by the editorial team.
Initially conceived as a Russian-language portal, in 2019 the Romanian edition of the website was launched, which translates some articles from Russian but also publishes original texts.
The Newsmaker.md portal publishes news, analysis, long reads, solution journalism, podcasts, and newsletters. In 2020, Newsmaker.md launched Moldova's first series made in the Screenlife format, in which the action takes place on the screens of smartphones, desktops, and other devices.
In 2019, the portal's editorial staff reported that the site had been cloned several times, the owners of the clone sites being unknown, but one of these online sources was placed on the same server as some Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova publications.
Between 2015 and 2023, the Newsmaker.md portal and its journalists were awarded at each edition of the Journalists of the Year Gala organized by the Independent Journalism Center, and in 2020, Newsmaker.md won the 2020 National Award for Journalistic Ethics and Deontology, presented by the Press Council.
Key Facts
| Audience Share | Missing Data |
|---|---|
| Ownership Type | Private |
| Geographic Coverage | Transnational |
| Content Type | Free |
| Active Transparency | company/channel informs proactively and comprehensively about its ownership, data is constantly updated and easily verifiable |
| Media Companies / Groups | News Maker |
Ownership
| Ownership Structure | Newsmaker.md is owned by the company News Maker LLC, whose owners are Olga Cenușă with 50% of the share capital, Galina Vasilieva with 26%, and Olga Gnatkova with 24% of the share capital. |
|---|---|
| Individual Owner |
Media Companies / Groups
Facts
| Founding Year | 2014 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Vladimir Soloviov Vladimir Soloviov was born in Odessa region, Ukraine. He grew up in the Transnistrian region. In 2002, he graduated from the State University of Moldova, majoring in Political Science, after which he started working in local media. He joined Kommersant in 2005 and specialized in international affairs. During the presidency of Dmitri Medvedev, he worked as a journalist in the press group covering the President's activities. As a reporter, he reported on the Russian-Georgian war in 2008; the massacre in Osh, Kyrgyz Republic, in 2010; the events in the Kazakh city of Zhanaozen (oil workers protests) in 2011. From 2012 to 2014, he headed the online publication Kommersant-Moldova, and after its closure in August 2014 he founded the news portal Newsmaker.md. In April 2017, he publicly stated that he was being followed and believed this would be related to his professional activity. Several media organizations described the case as an act of persecution and a serious violation of the right of journalists to exercise their profession unhindered. As of January 2018, Vladimir Soloviov is no longer the editor-in-chief and director of NewsMaker.md, but remained the sole owner of News Maker LLC until 2022. In 2020, Soloviov became editor-in-chief of the Russian channel TV Rain, a Russian opposition TV station in exile. He continues to write for Kommersant. In April 2022, he was detained for 5 hours by representatives from Tiraspol. He was removed from the building where the Unified Control Commission (UCC) holds its working meetings and taken to the office of the Transnistrian "Security Service". |
| CEO | Olga Cenușă Olga Cenușă has a degree in economics. From 2011 to 2018 she worked at the Legal Assistance Center for Persons with Disabilities. From 2018 to 2023 she was a consultant for Internews Network in Moldova. Between 2016 and 2019 she was the financial director of the Public Association Oameni și Kilometri. From February 2017 to present she has been working with NewsMaker.md, initially as a financial consultant, then as CFO, then as Executive Director. In May 2022, she became co-owner of News Maker LLC. Since 2016 she has been the administrator of the Association for the Promotion and Respect of Women with Disabilities PRO FEMEI.Stela Untilă |
| Editor-In-Chief | Stela Untilă Stela Untilă has a degree in journalism and political science. From 2013 to 2015 she was foreign news editor at GMG Media Group and Publika TV. In 2018 she continued the same activity at Vocea Basarabiei TV. From 2019 to the present she has been working at NewsMaker.md, the Romanian version of the website, initially as editor, then deputy editor-in-chief, and from July 1, 2024 - editor-in-chief. In 2020, the Independent Journalism Center named her journalist of the year in the editorial category. In 2023, Stela Untila, was awarded the grand prize of the European Journalist Fellowship program, and had the opportunity to follow a month-long internship at the Euractiv newsroom in Brussels. |
| Contact | str. Columna, 133/1 MD-2012 mun. Chișinău Moldova, Republic of office@newsmaker.md +373 62 073 333 https://newsmaker.md/ |
| Revenue | MDL 11,968,894 / USD 669,775 (2023) |
|---|---|
| Operating Profit | MDL - 236,168 / USD 13,215 (2023) |
| Advertising (in % of total funding) | MDL 1,907,048 / USD 106,717 (2023) |
| Market Share | Date lipsă |