In his Nowruzi address to Tajik intelligentsia President Rahmon expressed his dissatisfaction with the country’s state mass media and criticized them for providing the nation with old information. "Whenever something happens in our country, people are informed about it by Russian media and only after that our radio and TV air the news," said the president. "As a result, the situation is misunderstood, and false, custom-made, defamatory and exaggerated news reports emerge."

Tajikistan’s State Radio and TV Committee have been ordered to create a special news channel that would inform people about happenings within and beyond the country operatively, stated Rahmon.

The measure will have a minimum effect on Tajikistan’s day-to-day awareness of current affairs, some experts argue. "The country’s population has been deprived of watching TV altogether for almost half a year due to lack of electric power", says Nuriddin Qarshibayev, the head of the National Association of Independent Mass Media of Tajikistan. Instead, he suggests undertaking measures to revive independent daily papers throughout the country by abolishing most of the local official newspapers that promote official views only.

Qarshibayev emphasizes the need to re-establish dailies that Tajikistan has lost in the aftermath of the Soviet Union collapse and now most of its periodic publications are weekly. He believes that current official newspapers are tightly controlled; they do not analyze socio-economic problems nor reflect the real social mood.

Other observers point out that instead of creating one more ineffective news channel the State Radio and TV Committee could invest in its existing news outlets to improve them by attracting more professionals, easing their harsh censorship and enhancing the channels technologically. Tajik TV and radio channels have grown into a gross state propaganda network that is afraid to air views contradicting the official stance on a matter, they believe. As a result, they end up waiting for official approval of a news story lingering behind dozens of foreign media that wire their own version of the story as soon as it emerges.

However, Rahmon expressed his implicit support for the state censorship in the same speech by underlining the necessity of hindering publication of any material "that breaches the human dignity, in particular, of officials; kindles conflicts, regionalism and extremism." He also asked journalists to refrain from spreading "mistrust and pessimism" among the masses.