03. 10. 2006

"CHILDREN AS PROPAGANDA" ON RTS?

BELGRADE, NOVI SAD, October 3, 2006 (FoNet, Beta) - Several media associations has asked for the “Ključ” show on Radio Television Sebia to be taken off the air. The Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina and the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia said that the show is “a monstrous form of abuse of children in the referendum campaign.” Radio Television Serbia “through its show, is not only violating the basic ethical postulates of the profession, but also playing with the most-intimate human emotions with the goal of heating up political fervor and the further production of inter-ethnic hatred.” the associations added. “The goal of the show was to unnerve and homogenize the citizens, to mobilize them to participate in the coming referendum” according to a statement from the organizations. It added that “bringing children from Kosovo to the show, interviewing them, through hypocritical and primitive methods to get them to say what the journalists wanted to hear, playing with the children’s emotions and fears, is very similar to wartime propaganda from the 1990s and all other Goebbels-style methods used by journalists of that time to prepare the field for frightening crimes.” RTS Director disagrees Radio Television Serbia General Director Aleksandar Tijanić denied the accusations. “If the journalists’ associations want to ban the showing on a national service of what the lives of Serbian children in Kosovo are like, if their shocking words are being taken as political manipulation, I can only say that the show was planned months before any talks of a referendum and was taped before the referendum decision.” Tijanić said. He said that the accusations represent censorship and bans on what the associations are allegedly fighting to defend. “I have had enough of people who think that Serbia, and not the world, should be ashamed of the conditions in which children in Kosovo are growing up.” Tijanić said.