In a statement issued on Friday, the HND said that Hina's being joined with the HRT was a proposal by the government's commission in charge of analysing the operation of state agencies, institutes, funds and other legal persons.
The commission "has reportedly carried out an in-depth analysis of those operations" and concluded that Hina's merger with the HRT would save a significant amount of public money, which prompted the HND to underline the importance of Hina as a public service.
"The importance of Hina - which according to information from its editorial board produces up to 100,000 news items and 60,000 photographs annually and whose new items are published by most domestic media - cannot be measured by such a type of saving, which is all the commission is focused on. In the current time, when media increasingly serve to entertain or are turning to sensationalism, Hina, as a public service, has retained seriousness, objectivity, omnipresence and relevance. Many of its media users in a way keep operating owing to Hina's ample, well-edited news material," the HND said in the statement signed by its president Zdenko Duka.
The association also underlined that Hina had a wide range of media users, as well as that many news agencies in Europe had not been privatised or become a part of public electronic media, noting that it expected "an end to be put to reports about Hina losing its autonomy."