M. Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė announced her plans on Facebook
“The situation is unpleasant, but toughening. And now the most important thing for me is that the LRT itself does not suffer because of it and that the expectations of our audience are met fairly. Five years ago, I came to LRT in order to make it higher quality, more modern, reaching a wider audience, and I will fulfill this mission to the end.
The management team approves of this and will work shoulder to shoulder, I also received the support of many employees, friends, buddies and complete strangers, for which I am very grateful to all of them. We will continue to work and try to implement 2023-2027. The LRT strategy, which we developed together with the employees and the LRT council,” she writes.
M. Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė announced that she intends to participate in the new LRT manager competition. “I am sure that my program was professionally prepared and detailed, its presentation is solid, I am ready and I would even like to discuss the future of the LRT in public,” she says.
M. Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė complains that “the pre-election period was used to throw dirt on me and the LRT, instead of having substantive discussions, what would one really want from a public broadcaster, what should be done differently”. She believes that she is an independent and inept leader, which some politicians would very much like to get rid of in the run-up to the elections.
M. Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė also states that she understands that “in recent years, by improving its content and its presentation through traditional and digital channels, LRT has become a symbol of commercial media, happily and biasedly contributing to mud-slinging”.
“I understand that my questions regarding the quality of media self-regulation and the training of journalism students have been interpreted as a threat to the established media nomenclature, concerned only with its own survival,” she explains.
“It is important to realize that a strong LRT leader will always be attacked by interest groups. Those who expect to be able to achieve a high-quality and independent LRT and avoid sharp corners at the same time are making a big choice. LRT already had shifty and manipulative leaders and thus scattered part of its audience and trust,” says the interim head of LRT.
