13. 04. 2006

MORE ETHICS, LESS PRESSURE

BELGRADE, April 13, 2006 – A debate on the unified Draft Journalism Code of two journalists’ associations, UNS and NUNS, organized by the journalists veterans, was held yesterday at the Association of Serbian Journalists. Dragan Janjic, one of the authors of the Draft Code, stressed the importance of the Code to be accepted and adopted both by journalists and media owners. Janjic also added that these small steps in regulating the chaotic media scene in Serbia implicate the necessity in framing and reducing the “tyranny” of media owners. “We find it really important to make owners see that having a decent media does not necessarily mean loosing the game on the market”, said Janjic, also one of the co-owners of the Beta News Agency. Despite the fact that the existing codes are not at all bad, the Association of Serbian Journalists and the Association of Independent Serbian Journalists decided to jointly prepare a draft of a new code which will be publicly debated in two months time. The Code is relatively short and contains the principles of reporting authenticity, independence from pressures and responsibility of journalists and their relation to their sources of information, privacy and other unavoidable standards. The Code aims not to “change the world, but to instigate the change for the better of the bad state of the media”, said Janjic at the debate. Janjic also announced that the public debates on the Draft Code of Journalism would be organized on several locations in Serbia, focusing, among other issues, on discussion with media owners.