29. 05. 2012

Report on the presentation of the Publication „Serbian Media Scene VS European Standards“

The Publication "Serbian Media Scene VS European Standards" was presented in Belgrade Media Center on May 18, 2012. This Publication is the first complete report about the media situation in Serbia based on 27 indicators of the Council of Europe for measuring freedom of expression, freedom of information and media freedom in one country. This report is the result of joint work of the organizations Civil Rights Defenders, ANEM, NUNS, NDNV and Local Press, and includes legal and communicological analysis of data on legal, political, economic and professional environment for media operations in Serbia. The Report presents a civil society's initiative to put the problem of the media sector reform into the public focus and an appeal to the authorities to finally stop postponement of these reforms and to undertake fundamental and effective changes in the media system.

The presentation of the Publication „Serbian Media Scene VS European Standards" was attended by a large number of stakeholders, over 80 - out of which 12 representatives of state institutions (Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society, Serbian Parliament's Culture and Information Committee, Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, Ombudsman, Provincial Secretariat for Culture and Public Information, Public Company "Broadcasting Equipment and Communications", Intellectual Property Office, Government's Office for Cooperation with Civil Society, The National Council for Decentralization), 5 representatives of regulatory bodies (RBA, RATEL and Press Council), 10 experts and representatives of the academic community, 3 representatives of the Belgrade-based embassies (Embassy of Sweden, Hungary and the Netherlands), 6 representatives of NGOs (BIRN, Civic Initiatives, Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, EPUS), 14 representatives of the donor community and international organizations (Council of Europe, EU Delegation to Serbia, Foundation for an Open Society, OSCE, USAID, IREX, UNICEF and UNDP) and 13 other guests, representatives of local media, trade unions, etc. The event was also attended by 19 representatives of media and news agencies (Kurir, Danas, RTS, RTV Vojvodina, RTV Kragujevac, Tanjug, Beta, FoNet, HINA, Radio Beograd, International Radio Serbia, Uzicka nedelja, Svet Plus, Euractiv, Freenet, Poligrafika and Njuz.net).

In the first part of the event, the Publication was presented by: Jovanka Matic, Phd, Research Coordinator and author of the report, who gave a general picture of media situation in Serbia starting from Council of Europe's 27 indicators for the media in a democracy, Slobodan Kremenjak, ANEM lawyer, who spoke about compliance of the legal framework and practice with European regulations and standards of freedom of expression and media freedoms, while selected indicators were presented by the presidents of the four associations participating in the research: Sasa Mirkovic (ANEM), Vukasin Obradovic (NUNS), Dejan Miladinovic (Local Press) and Dinko Gruhonjic (NDNV). Their presentations elicited the discussion about the media situation in Serbia in the second part of the event.

The Publication was prepared in cooperation with the Civil Rights Defenders and financial support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida)

The complete Report is available here
PPT presentation is available here (only in Serbian)