14. 10. 2005

DECLARATION OF A NEW SYSTEM OF ETHICAL JOURNALISM

For the past eight months, the group has monitored all of the country's major daily newspapers and weekly newsmagazines, from the standpoint of whether they abide by commonly accepted norms and standards of ethics and professionalism in their reporting. The results of this monitoring show that the Serbian press is regressing back into slander, lies, hatemongering, xenophobia, and other practices that characterized its writing during the Milosevic era. This prompted Media Watch Serbia to send an urgent appeal to all professional associations of journalists, the Serbian Ministry of Culture and editors-in-chief of major news publications in the country to recommit themselves to democratic values, ethics and professionalism. The group announced that it will hold a roundtable conference later this month, at which time they will call for the immediate adoption of a Uniform Code of Ethical Conduct for journalists and the formation of a Council on Media Ethics (a Statutory Press Council and Ombudsman for Media Ethics) to enforce the new ethics code. Declaration of a new System of Ethical Journalism in Serbia http://www.anem.org.yu/download/100705declarationMC.pdf