ANEM Board Members and Leadership

Veran Matić is the president of the Association of Independent Electronic Media, a member of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, the chairman of the Commission for Investigating the Murders of Journalists, the executive director of the Serbian Philanthropic Forum, the manager of the B92 Fund, the editor-in-chief and owner of the portal javniservis.net. He coordinates the Safe Line SOS phone service for reporting threats and attacks on journalists.

He has been engaged in journalism since 1984. He was a journalist and editor for the program Rhythm of the Heart at Studio B, a correspondent for Youth Radio 101 from Zagreb, and Radio Student from Ljubljana. He has written for NON, Start, and collaborated with the educational program of RTS.

He is one of the founders of Radio B92. Over the course of 30 years, from 1989 to 2019, he held the positions of editor-in-chief, director of Radio and Television B92, web portal, publishing house Samizdat, Music Production B92, and Cultural Center Rex.

He has produced numerous documentaries and editorially supported investigative journalism through the program Insider and other programming content. He is the author of the project “Independent for the Truth,” dozens of films and series related to the topic of confronting the recent past and war crimes, organized multiple conferences on this subject, and throughout his career actively worked on normalizing relations between countries in the region and on reconciliation.

Under his leadership, B92 was not only one of the few professional objective media outlets during the wars of the 1990s but also won numerous domestic and international journalism awards and recognitions. Documentaries and feature films received accolades at both domestic and international festivals, while socially responsible, educational, and humanitarian campaigns addressed numerous social issues, positively changed public awareness, and garnered various recognitions.

Successfully utilizing innovation and creativity, he overcame four bans and two confiscations of the entire property of Radio B92. He combined top-notch journalistic professionalism, technological innovations, and international solidarity, building a system that promptly responded to any form of broadcast restrictions and freedom of expression. This station was, thus, with the ANEM network, the "backbone" of the march on Belgrade, when the autocrat Slobodan Milošević was overthrown in peaceful protests.

He has been arrested, persecuted, and wiretapped. For five years, he was under 24/7 police protection due to life threats coming from criminal circles exposed by B92's informational and investigative programs.

He founded ANEM in 1994 with more than 40 radio and television stations, serving as chairman of the Board of Directors until 2004. He is the founder of the portal javniservis.net, which represents a non-profit space for freedom of speech, the affirmation of local professional journalism, and empathy.

At the helm of the B92 Fund, he initiated and secured the construction of six safe houses for women experiencing domestic violence, the procurement of a digital mobile mammogram for breast cancer prevention, a blood transfusion bus for the Blood Transfusion Institute, equipping all maternity hospitals in Serbia with incubators and other necessary medical equipment, as well as other key medical institutions in the country. He launched a campaign and participated in the establishment of the Memorial Center Staro Sajmište.

He is a recipient of the Order of the Legion of Honor in the rank of knight for his special contribution to freedom of the press, the Order of Merit from the German President for his contribution to media freedom, the safety of journalists, and objective reporting, as well as the Sretenje Order of the Third Degree from the Republic of Serbia.

The International Press Institute declared him one of the 50 Heroes of Freedom of the Press after World War II, while the World Economic Forum in Davos named him a Global Leader for the Future. He has received the annual award from the American Committee to Protect Journalists, the Olof Palme Award for Professional Journalism from the Annenberg School for Journalism, the Recognition for Social Justice from the organization "Children Connecting Nations," the Award for Contribution to the Advancement of Victim Rights from the Victimology Society of Serbia, the Ilaria Alpi Award in memory of the murdered Italian journalist, and the annual award from the City of Belgrade for journalism, as well as the "Dragan Sakan – New Idea" award presented by UEPS, and the Press Knight recognition for lifetime achievement for his significant contribution to the development of investigative journalism. The OSCE Mission in Serbia named him the Personality of the Year in 2024.

On behalf of B92, he received the Free Your Mind award from MTV, as well as the Robert Schuman Award from the European Parliament. On behalf of the Commission for Investigating the Murders of Journalists, he received the Bronze Lion at the Cannes Advertising Festival, together with the marketing agency Saatchi & Saatchi, for the campaign against violence towards journalists.

The Serbian Association of Managers named him Manager of the Year, while the Trag Foundation awarded him the Virtus Award for his contribution to philanthropy.

His humanitarian work has been marked by actions such as Battle for Babies, Battle for Knowledge, Food for All, as well as campaigns against domestic violence, breast cancer, for increased voluntary blood donation, and for organ donation. For several years, he served as the envoy of the President of the Republic for resolving the issues of the missing persons with Croatia. He is a recipient of the Svetozar Pribićević plaque for improving relations between Croats and Serbs, awarded by the Serbian National Council.

His writings have been published in The New York Times, The New York Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, Index on Censorship, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Le Monde, The Nation, and many others.

He co-edited the book with Dejan Ilić: “Truth, Responsibility, Reconciliation: Examples in Serbia” (co-authors and editors: Dejan Ilić and Veran Matić), Belgrade: Samizdat B92, 2000.

He is a co-author of the collection Shaping the Networked Society, edited by Douglas Schuler and Peter Day - chapter no. 8, Civil Networking in a Hostile Environment: Experiences in the Former Yugoslavia.

Milorad Tadić (Požarevac, January 23, 1966) is the director and editor-in-chief of Boom93, one of the founders of ANEM, where he served as coordinator and vice president, and held the position of president of the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) from 2013 to 2019. He has over three decades of experience in media and media business. He conceptualized and developed Boom93, which is now one of the most influential local media outlets in eastern Serbia.

Under his leadership, numerous NGOs have been established in Požarevac, the most active of which is the Center for the Development of Local Media. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Open Society Fund from 2002 to 2006.

He has organized numerous seminars and training sessions in the areas of management and planning in electronic media, as well as various cultural events, humanitarian actions, public debates, and campaigns.

Slobodan Krajnović (Novi Sad, December 17, 1973) is the director of the Broadcasting Company "021" based in Novi Sad, as well as the editor-in-chief of the 021 portal and radio. He has over two and a half decades of experience in media and media business. He conceptualized and developed the portal 021.rs, which is today the most influential news media outlet in the Vojvodina region. He is a lecturer and panelist at numerous professional gatherings within the radio industry and digital media. He has received several awards.