16. 02. 2011

PRESENTATION OF MEDIA STRATEGY POSTPONED

Belgrade, February 16, 2011 (Danas) - The Draft Media Strategy will not be presented on February 20, as it was previously announced by the Ministry of Culture. The reason for that are ongoing negotiations with the representatives of media associations, namely, the discussion about their participation in the working group that will work on developing this document, the representatives of media associations said today for the "Danas" daily. Presentation of the Draft could be expected in the first half of the year and the adoption of the document by the end of 2011.

According to the results of hitherto negotiations, the working group should consist of three members from media associations, two representatives of the Ministry of Culture, as well as two independent experts to be proposed by the Ministry. As for the deadlines, the media associations agree that it should not be done fast, but that it is necessary to develop the strategy that will regulate the media sector in a qualitative way.

Based on information available to the "Danas" daily, representatives of the associations were invited to take part in the talks together with the Ministry of Culture. These are associations that jointly acted in presenting suggestions regarding development of the Media Strategy: ANEM, IJAS (NUNS), JAS (UNS), IJAV (NDNV) and Local Press.

Representatives of NUNS, UNS and ANEM explain that hitherto agreements have been unofficial and conditions of work are yet to be defined, as well as the deadlines for developing the Draft Media Strategy. As for specific fields and problems, several solutions will be offered, and it will be determined, during the public discussion, which are the most adequate ones.

Speaking for daily "Danas", Head of the Media Department of OSCE Mission to Serbia Dragana Solomon expressed hope that the representatives of the Ministry and associations would succeed in reaching the agreement regarding their joint participation in the development of the Media Strategy, in order the reform of the Serbian media scene to be undertaken in the most qualitative way.

"The focus should not be on deadlines, rather on developing the quality document as the framework for reforms of the media scene. OSCE and the Council of Europe are monitoring the whole process closely and when the Draft Strategy is completed, they will give their view on it and also provide EU expert's opinions", Solomon stresses out.

What she deems the most important is the fact that the media associations jointly presented their stands on this issue and that they participated very actively in the autumn round tables on the EU experts' recommendations.

The presentation of the Draft Media Strategy has been postponed two times now, although it was announced that the final text of the document would have been completed by the end of last year. The representatives of expert media community have been previously pointing to political interests as possible reasons for postponing the completion of this document.

Recommendations on the content of the Media Strategy stipulate, among other things, establishing the regional public services, solutions for the privatization and support to media as well as the transformation of the Tanjug News Agency. The recommendations were provided by EU experts, and several round tables were held within the public discussion.