Information

In the completed competitions for project co-financing of media content, among those that have received the most funding so far are the Novi Sad Dnevnik, Vojvodina Press, Novosadska TV, and Radio-television Pančevo, which have participated in a larger number of competitions.

Večernje novosti has received a total of 11,380,050 dinars this year from the completed competitions for project co-financing of media content, for both the print edition and the portal. This media outlet has applied for nearly all competitions at all levels.

Despite the law from 2023, which improved the provisions on the transparency of such competitions by stipulating mandatory criteria for compliance with the Journalists' Code, and whose implementation is monitored by the Press Council, the competitions published during 2024 have significantly reduced public financing in certain municipalities, according to the European Commission's annual report on the state of the rule of law in Serbia.

Last year, Pančevo allocated as much as 29 million dinars to the media through public procurement, primarily for promotional video clips. Previously, 40 million was set aside for media competitions, but now it is almost 10 times less since a legal requirement was established that pro-regime media cannot meet – to provide truthful information while respecting the ethical code.

The proposal of the decision by the commission for the allocation of funds in the competition for co-financing projects in the field of public information in the municipality of Novi Bečej for the year 2025 envisages that the funds will be granted to only one media outlet – the company VTV d.o.o. from Subotica, which operates TV Novi Bečej.

From 2015 to the present, or during the past 11 years, the City of Kruševac has distributed a total of just over 181 million dinars, specifically 181,203,000 dinars, in media competitions, according to an analysis conducted by the Center for Investigative Journalism Kruševac (CINK). The data shows that by far the largest amount of money during this period was received by Radio Television Kruševac, which was allocated 79.56 million dinars. If we add the 22.46 million set aside for Radio Kruševac and the 8.59 million for the RTK portal, the total amounts to 110.613 million dinars, which is 61 percent of the total amount.

The City of Belgrade has once again allocated the largest portion of funds in this year's competition for co-financing media projects to regime media that violate the Code of Journalists of Serbia. The champion of the competition this time is Studio B, which received a total of 12.5 million dinars for three projects. In second place is the publisher of Informer, the company Insider Team, which was granted 10.5 million dinars, also for three projects. Third place is occupied by Alo and its subsidiary Bizmedia, which together received 7 million dinars.

The Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM), the Journalists' Association of Serbia (UNS), the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia (NUNS), and Local Press point out that the evaluation of media projects and the allocation of funds within the project co-financing process continued in June, accompanied by numerous controversial decisions, irregularities, and a lack of transparency in the process.

The editorial team of FAR, a bilingual internet portal from Dimitrovgrad that publishes information in Bulgarian and Serbian, is primarily funded through foreign donations, as our projects do not succeed in local and national competitions due to our critical reporting, said Danijela Apostolov Videnov, a journalist for the portal.