A Decade of Media Competitions in Bečej: A Case Study of Transforming Public Interest into a Budgetary Self-Service for the Chosen Few.

When, in 2015, following the adoption of a set of media laws, the then President of the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia, Vukašin Obradović, spoke about the pillars of project co-financing – public interest and strict control over the spending of funds – expectations were high. In theory, the system was supposed to ensure that public money went to the highest quality media projects, primarily investigative ones, while control mechanisms would guarantee the legality and purposefulness of the expenditures.