NewsMaker

What is NewsMaker?

NewsMaker is a news portal published at newsmaker.md in Romanian and Russian; its menu offers both languages.^[1] The Media Ownership Monitor Moldova 2024, published by Global Media Registry and Media Guard, records the publishing company, News Maker SRL, as owned by Olga Cenușă with 50 per cent, Galina Vasilieva with 26 per cent and Olga Gnatkova with 24 per cent, following a change of shareholders in 2022.^[2] Those are 2024 records; no later ownership document was retrieved.

The Monitor gives the company's revenue for 2023 as MDL 11,968,894, of which MDL 1,907,048 came from advertising.^[2] It describes the output: “Portalul Newsmaker.md publică știri, analize, longreaduri, jurnalism de soluții, podcast, newsletter.” It classes the ownership as private, the content as free and the geographic coverage as transnational.^[2] The site's footer reads “© 2026 NewsMaker. Toate drepturile rezervate.”^[1]

What does NewsMaker cover?

The Romanian sport section sits at newsmaker.md/ro/category/sport. Its items of 1 August to 23 September 2026 were mostly results of Moldovan athletes.^[1] They included the headlines “Luptătoarele Irina Rîngaci și Mihaela Samoil, medaliate cu aur la un turneu internațional din Croația” (23 September), “Dan-Dorin Betca aduce trei medalii de aur pentru Moldova: A devenit campion mondial universitar la haltere” (10 September), “Halterofila din Moldova, Nicoleta Cojocaru, din nou campioană europeană. A stabilit trei recorduri” (23 August) and “Un nou succes pentru judo-ul moldovenesc: Mihail Latîșev a câștigat argintul la Grand Prix-ul de la Lima” (17 August).^[1]

The same period carried “Debut cu victorie în UFC: luptătorul moldovean Pavel Andrușca l-a învins pe britanicul Nathaniel Wood” (6 September), a judo final in Peru between two Moldovans, and, on 17 August, “Juniorul lui Tottenham a renunțat la naționala Moldovei și a ales România”.^[1] Those are seven weeks' headlines, each resting on that single report.

NewsMaker also reports on sports broadcasting. On 29 July 2024 it published the explanation of Teleradio-Moldova's director, Vlad Țurcanu, for why Moldova 1 was not broadcasting the Paris Olympic Games live: that the rights belonged to Romanian Television, TVR, and had been bought several years before his administration began.^[5]

How large is NewsMaker's audience?

BATI, the Biroul de Audit al Tirajelor si Internetului, publishes a monthly ranking of the websites in the gemiusAudience Moldova panel. Its report for August 2026, published on 5 September 2026, states that its data cover 25 sites in the gemiusAudience Moldova panel for that month.^[4][6] The report places newsmaker.md sixth, with 204,930 real users.^[4] That is one month's reading for the whole domain, in both languages, not for its sport section.

BATI's report for July 2026, from the same panel of 25 sites, places newsmaker.md seventh, with 203,328 real users.^[8] The two months' readings are given as published, and neither measures the readership of the sport section on its own.

The Media Ownership Monitor's online page lists newsmaker.md among the top news sites on September 2024 data from BATI and Gemius.^[3]

Since when has NewsMaker existed?

The Media Ownership Monitor states that the portal “a fost fondat în august 2014 de către jurnalistul Vladimir Soloviov”, after the Moldovan online edition of Kommersant that he had managed closed. It adds: “Inițial a fost conceput ca portal de limbă rusă, iar în 2019 a apărut ediția română a site-ului, care traduce unele subiecte din rusă, dar publică și articole originale.”^[2] On ownership it writes: “În 2022, structura de aționariat a companiei care gestiona portalul a fost schimbată, proiectul continuând să fie coordonat de echipa redacțională.”^[2] The Monitor adds that from January 2018 Soloviov was no longer editor-in-chief and director but remained the sole owner of News Maker SRL, until the 2022 change of shareholders.^[2] These dates are the Monitor's; the site's own footer, as retrieved, states none.^[1]

Why does NewsMaker matter in Moldova's sport?

It is a bilingual portal with a measured national audience, sixth among the 25 sites in BATI's audited ranking for August 2026, and the Media Ownership Monitor lists it among the top news sites on September 2024 data.^[4][3] Its sport section reports Moldovan results in wrestling, weightlifting and judo, the sports in which Moldova's Olympic medal rows fall, and it has reported on who holds the Olympic broadcasting rights in Moldova.^[1][5]

Reporters Without Borders ranks Moldova 31st of 180, with a score of 74.77, in its 2026 index, and states: “Freedom of the press and the right to information are guaranteed by law, and best practices are encouraged by a journalistic code of ethics.” Reporters Without Borders writes, under the heading “Economic context”: “Faced with a difficult economic environment and weakened by the collapse of the advertising market due to the war in Ukraine, independent media outlets lack resources and experience financial difficulties.”^[7]