16. 06. 2003

Government exerts pressure on media

BELGRADE, June 16, 2003 (Glas javnosti) Glas javnosti and Ipres have tried to discover what the Serbian people think about press bans and how they describe the government’s attitude to the media. Analysing the response,* Ipres arrived at the conclusion that the majority of Serbs (50.38 per cent) believe that press bans are unnecessary because they jeopardise democratic freedoms. However a very high percentage (42.57 per cent) see bans as a necessity which should be used only in extreme situations, while only 4.37 per cent saw the banning of newspapers as a legitimate measure used by every state to protect itself from the abuse of democratic freedom. As far as Serbs’ description of the present authorities’ attitude to the media the situation is clearer, with 91.48 per cent of people believing that tithe government is exerting some kind of pressure on media. Of these 91.48 per cent, 60.74 per cent say that the authorities are always exerting strong pressure on media, while 31.10 per cent say that the government applies a reasonable amount of pressure on media, as does any other government. This means that almost a third of Serbs approve some form of pressure on the media. It is worth noting that only 1.65 per cent of people believe that the government is not expecting any pressure on the media. Another 2.43 per cent of respondents declined to make any kind of assessment on the government’s attitude to media while 4.08 per cent opted for a “don’t know” response. Generally speaking it could be said that we live in a world of mass communications which is overburdened with problems, so that the justification of media people for any deficiencies is that nothing has been fully completed in the field of legal and other regulations. This, they say, would resolve and define relations between the government, the media and the consumers of media services. by Vinko Djuric