Why Albania’s domestic PR wars are being fought abroad
Story Highlights
- A lot of effort and money has been spent in a PR war in the Western press between Albania’s main political parties
- which raises the question: Why are Albanian parties fighting a domestic political contest in foreign lands?
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A lot of effort and money has been spent in a PR war in the Western press between Albania’s main political parties; which raises the question: Why are Albanian parties fighting a domestic political contest in foreign lands?
For those of who follow Albania’s portrayal in the Western press, and in the American one in particular, February 2023 was a strange month. There has been a flurry of articles about Albanian domestic politics or and issues that relate to Albanian politics.
This is unusual. Typically Western media are mostly uninterested in anything that happens in Albania beyond something that is bizarre or that affects their countries directly. Recent activity has to do with the latter, yet it is still unusual by the quantity of the coverage and the details provided.
Much of that activity relates to a former high FBI official, Charles McGonigal, who was recently arrested in the United States, accused, among other things, of not properly reporting contacts and connections with Albanian officials, including meetings with Prime Minister Rama, and that he received undeclared cash from an Albanian-American man with ties to Albanian officials.
The McGonigal affair has created the conditions for the latest major PR battle in the international press between the the ruling Socialist Party of Albania (SPA) and the main opposition Democratic Party of Albania (DPA).
That war is not new, just more intensive of late. Both the SPA and DPA now and in recent years have handed out heavy blows to each other in the American and European press. An unknown amount of effort and, likely, a lot of money has been spent in the PR war. The question, however, should be: Why are Albanian parties fighting a domestic political contest in foreign lands?
Playing for alliances
The McGonigal affair coverage has been critical of Albania’s ruling SPA, especially in American media outlets with a center right to right-wing editorial bent. But with heavy coverage in all top-tier publications and mentioning Albania and its prime minister as tied to the affair, the issue has become a cause celebre of the domestic opposition and likely hurt the reputation of the SPA in the United States.
Unlike much of its domestic policies — which critics say are increasingly right wing and populist — the ruling SPA portrays itself in the United States and globally as a center left party with the U.S. Democratic Party as a natural ally.
The main opposition Democratic Party of Albania (DPA) is playing at the same game, naturally allying itself with the GOP, the American Republicans, and with some DPA elements courting the MAGA GOP faction of former President Trump, a toxic figure for the mainstream American press, which has been traditionally editorially closer to the center left. The DPA has paid a heavy price as a result, becoming an easy target in the PR wars of their rival, the SPA, in the process.
Before the latest affair, the SPA appeared to have had the upper hand in the PR war. With solid 10 years in power and faced with a divided and weakened opposition, the SPA has had the ability to use more tools, funding and people with the right skillset in its U.S. PR war. But with power come allegations and scandals — and the shine wears off. The SPA now faces an uphill battle in light of the latest affair.
How and why do they do it?
Anyone who understands how getting coverage in the top-tier media outlets works knows that international news coverage is often not organic. There is always someone who is pitching ideas — that someone is often a well-paid PR expert. Many of the recent articles are being written by journalists that do not cover Albania on a regular basis — a strong indication that the coverage is being driven by external pitches, not regular beat work.
That brings us back to the original question: Why are Albanian parties fighting a domestic contest in a foreign land?
The simple answer is that they are looking for influence in the United States and legitimacy with Albanians back home. The way they are going about it seems to go from legal and transparent (mostly thanks to U.S. laws requiring it) to shady and potentially illegal (which is what has gotten both SPA and DPA in trouble in the past.)
The U.S. influence-seeking part is clear, and is one additional element to general lobbying, but the seeking legitimacy with Albanians part deserves a bit more explaining.
The makeup of the domestic media and polls on how little Albanians trust it mandate that Albanian political parties try to seek legitimacy through foreign media.
Domestic media under pressure and in crisis
The domestic media is largely now in the hands of select large companies that often use it to further their own business interests rather than serving the public interest. Editorial lines of late switch at a mere business deal going bad or commercial license not being issued.
A media that runs in pay-to-play mode is hard to trust, thus it is losing relevance. The latest viewership numbers show Albanians are increasingly turning away from all-news channels, for example, of which Albania has more than it could ever be able to consume thanks to the pay-to-play model of the companies running them.
Moreover, Albanian politicians have to go to international media because the local media are simply too afraid to break important news, and would rather copy paste it from an international media, which then can protect itself and its journalists better from the wrath of the Albanian government.
With Albanian media increasingly failing at creating legitimacy — and change — with its reporting, hopes often turn to foreign media and its credibility and resources.
There is also a cultural element, which thankfully is fading as Albania is becoming more global, that everything foreign, and Western in particular, is by its very nature, better than what is Albanian. That is not always the case. But until Albanians can deal with the chip on our shoulders, our political representatives will continue to have to seek legitimacy abroad before they do at home.
