02. 06. 2011

THE GAME HAS NEW RULES

Belgrade, June 2, 2011 (Vecernje Novosti) - The Draft Media Strategy was completed yesterday and the working group tasked to write this document, submitted it to the Ministry of Culture. According to announcements by Dragana Milicevic-Milutinovic, Assistant to Minister in charge of the media, the Ministry will give its opinion and suggestions on this document within a week. The public debate would follow and will last until the end of July.

"All deadlines have been met. Working group consisted of representatives of journalists' and media associations and media experts have submitted their proposal, and if we have any objections, we will also publish our version of the Strategy, prior to the beginning of public debate", Dragana Milicevic explained.

The Strategy should be the basis for the future media laws and other legal documents so it has included all the relevant issues. It deals with the legislation, privatization and ownership in the media.

"Privatization of the media must be completed, in which the state should not have its share", said Rade Veljanovski, PhD and one of the authors of the Strategy. "We have rejected the idea of establishing a number of local and regional public services, because it would be financially unviable. We have foreseen state assistance for newspapers, radio and TV stations through financing projects of common interest."

Veljanovski explained that the Strategy was also dealing with digitalization and the new media, information on minority languages ​​and other key issues.