Agron Shehaj has called for the closure of RTSH, because according to him, the money for financing public television is money spent in vain.
He says that by closing RTSH, 30 million euros would be saved per year.
“A public television that no one watches, no one follows, and has no real impact, spends 30 million euros per year from your taxes. Just one example of many others. This is how I save Albania 1 billion euros per year, by stopping abuse, not service; by removing parasites, not teachers and doctors”, says Agron Shehaj.
Journalist Lutfi Dervishi responded to him.
“The idea that RTSH should be closed is as old as some of its programs. It is the usual refrain of a society that, faced with every problem, thinks with scissors: “Cut it!”
But the real challenge is not to close it, but to bring it back to life. Not in a life of television zombies reading the teleprompter, but in a public media, which belongs… to the public.
Today more than ever, there is a need for a screen that does not measure success by clicks, that does not serve parties, but the public, and that does not see the viewer as a consumer of memes.
Closing is a popular sport, everyone knows how to do it. But building something that raises the cultural and informative level is an elite sport; not out of arrogance, but out of the desire and thirst for quality in a sea of pettiness and mediocrity.
Evil is always faster, louder, more colorful, more viral, even more interesting if you want. But that is no reason to hand over the flag.
Yes, banality has become a luxury, it is sold everywhere, drunk with energy drinks and dressed up with English words. But in a place where finesse seems like a spelling mistake, RTSH can and has the potential to become a haven of reason, dignity and intelligence.
Yes, there is a lot of dust on RTSH, but dust cannot be removed with a bulldozer. It needs cleaning, vision and above all: courage not to fall short.
Because when everything else is screaming, like fools who have been fooled for nothing, someone needs to say something sensible. And if this does not come from public television, then from whom do you expect it to come?
So it should be given a chance, even more so in times when logic seems to have taken the usual leave”, says Dervishi in his reaction.
