RIGA, July 10 (Xinhua) -- News service employees of Latvian public radio issued an open letter on Wednesday, calling on the public broadcaster's board to resign.
In their letter, journalists cited radio correspondents' excessive workload, low wages and the outflow of the best journalists from Latvian Radio.
Reacting to the no-confidence note, the board of public radio said it was aware of the critical situation in the news service and the public radio in general but would stay on to try and fix the problems.
Culture Minister Nauris Puntulis, who is in charge of national media policy, urged the parties concerned to sit down and sort out the issues.
The Latvian Radio board said that a request for an increased budget allocation had already been submitted to the government in order to boost the broadcaster's capacity, ensure competitive salaries and curb the outflow of professional employees.
The only right way to proceed in the given situation is to stick together and fight for a bigger budget, the board of the broadcaster said.
Vita Anda Terauda, an MP who chairs the media policy subcommittee in parliament, said that the public media organizations have long been financially "starved" and that the radio journalists' open letter was a consequence of this.
MP Terauda said her liberal Development/For! alliance has already tabled a proposal to increase funding to Latvia's public radio and television in the country's 2020 budget, adding that she expected the National Electronic Mass Media Council to pay closer attention to the public media in the country.
