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Based on the competition for project co-financing of media content in Serbia for the year 2026, funds have so far been distributed to 28 local governments, amounting to a total of over 355 million dinars.

While a panel discussion on the polarization of Serbian society was being held at the editorial office of the local Slovak-Serbian media outlet Storyteller at the end of April, stands of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party were "coincidentally" positioned in front of the doors. For the journalists of this independent minority media from Kulpin, this is neither the first nor, they say, probably the last pressure they are experiencing. This is their story.

For three projects related to children, health, and cultural landmarks in Belgrade, Informer received 10.5 million dinars (approximately 90,000 euros) from the Belgrade budget last year. We scrutinized the content published under these projects: not only were the articles that cost millions short, superficial, and trivial, but in some cases, journalists "lifted" sentences and paragraphs from other media or their own older articles, and for the project on cultural landmarks in Belgrade (3.5 million dinars), they even plagiarized texts from the official city website. They were no less lazy when it came to sourcing interviewees, as they simply used quotes from other media for some articles without citing the sources.

Former KRIK journalist Jelena Radivojević stated today at the trial involving KRIK, following a lawsuit from the judge of the Appellate Court in Belgrade, Dušanka Đorđević, that she believes this is a clear example of an attempt to intimidate journalists. “The judge and her husband requested that no more articles be written about them and that previous texts be deleted – not because anything is inaccurate, but because they claim we do not have the right to write about it, even though the judge is a public official,” Radivojević noted.

“How did the system collapse? I believe that this question best illustrates where Serbia stands today regarding the safety of journalists. What we are witnessing are not isolated incidents. This is not a temporary deterioration of the situation. It is a collapse of the mechanisms that are supposed to prevent attacks, protect journalists, investigate threats, and ensure accountability,” emphasized Tamara Filipović Stevanović, the General Secretary of the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS), at the two-day OSCE conference “Strengthening Journalism as a Public Good.” According to her, what we are witnessing are not isolated incidents and it is not a temporary deterioration of the situation. 

The National Working Group for the Fight Against SLAPP expresses serious concern regarding the ruling of the Second Basic Court in Belgrade, which has ordered the Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation to pay a total of 1,035,000 dinars to Milan Radonjić, Ratko Romić, and Miroslav Kurak, after former members of the State Security filed a lawsuit against the Foundation due to a statement expressing dissatisfaction with the final acquittal ruling of the Appeals Court in the case of the murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija.

The Second Basic Court in Belgrade has issued a ruling in the case against the Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation, stating that the Foundation is obliged to pay three former members of the State Security Service, Miroslav Kurak, Ratko Romić, and Milan Radonjić, 200,000 dinars each as compensation for damage to reputation and honor, as well as an additional 435,000 dinars for legal costs. In total, according to the first-instance ruling, the Foundation is required to pay 1,035,000 dinars.

Media freedom in Serbia continues to rapidly decline. Ahead of the early parliamentary elections, there is growing fear that President Aleksandar Vučić wants to further silence all independent media, writes the Dutch media outlet Trouw.