Experience of the members of the evaluation committees for media projects: The biggest criticisms of JIS.

Jovan Bukovala has been an independent media expert and a member of evaluation committees for media projects in 46 committees over the past seven years.

“I carry a negative experience from the Niš city municipality of Crveni Krst when, in 2019, my mobile phone number was given to participants whose projects were not co-financed, telling me: ‘You came, kid, from Belgrade. We will sue you, young professor!’ Of course, to this day, no administrative dispute has ever been initiated,” Bukovala states.

He adds that in 2023 he experienced the most unpleasant situation when a text appeared against Gordana Ristić, Dragan Stojanović Žika from UNS, and himself, claiming that millions of dinars were allocated to a certain Radoica Milosavljević, allegedly a businessman from Kruševac close to the SNS, as well as a legal entity that registered the cessation of operations with the APR starting from July 22, 2022, even though the verification of the documentation submitted for the competition is carried out by the professional service of the authority that announced the competition, not the committee, which is why the final decision was partially overturned.

According to him, although the compensation for participation in the committee's work is important, it is unfair for poorer municipalities to offer higher fees than wealthier ones. Therefore, he believes that there should be a scale established so that each project is valued at a specific amount, as it often happens that only a few projects are submitted in some local government units, while the fee amounts to 20 or 30 thousand dinars.

“In contrast, in the relevant ministry for public information, there are over 200 projects submitted, with compensation ranging between 30, 40, and 50 thousand dinars. Moreover, it is unfair that for certain competitions (internet and television), the fee is higher than for others (radio, print media, and agencies). Thus, this clearly sends an unequivocal message about which media should be primary, rather than ensuring equal representation for all, especially considering the environment in which that media operates,” Bukovala assesses.

Predrag Rava participated in several committees this year as a representative of the Association of Journalists of Serbia. This year, he says, perhaps for the first time, he did not face any pressures or influences as a committee member regarding which projects should pass and how much money they should receive.

“However, I would emphasize, and I don’t believe it was coincidental, that as a member of UNS, I was in smaller committees, meaning in smaller local municipalities. Smaller in terms of having less budgeted money for projects. So the only explanation would be that they did not want to create a problem for that small amount, but rather to demonstrate some level of democracy and thus lend legitimacy to the competition. In any case, it is noticeable that there were committee members who participated in a large number of committees, 40-50 committees, and if we know that the entire process lasted several months, then it is quite clear that it is almost impossible for them to perform their jobs effectively,” he points out.

His suggestion is that it is perfectly reasonable to potentially limit the number of committees.

“That number must be limited so that each member participating in a large number of committees has time to perform their job properly. I believe this is impossible if someone is involved in 30, 40, or 50 committees. What is crucial, and perhaps should be said at the outset, is that all these years, as long as this process of distributing public funds through project competitions in the area of public information has existed, there has never been any internal or external evaluation; those projects have never been fully monitored, resulting in competitions for well-written projects, while what was actually accomplished on the ground is not controlled by anyone,” Rava emphasizes.

Fahrudin Kladničanin was a member of the committees as an independent candidate and assesses his experience in working with professional committees, especially regarding communication with local governments, as mostly correct, professional, and at a satisfactory level.

“However, during this year, a certain difficulty in implementing procedures has been noticeable, primarily due to the introduction of the Unified Information System (UIS). The UIS itself, as a new digital tool, has caused some confusion in the operations of local governments, as the individuals responsible for conducting the competitions were often not adequately trained for its application. Considering that this is the first year of UIS implementation, it is understandable that achieving its full functionality requires time, additional training, and experience. In this context, members of the professional committees often provided assistance to employees in local governments to ensure that the entire process ran as efficiently and smoothly as possible,” Kladničanin explains.

He emphasizes that he did not notice any direct interference from local governments in the decision-making process during his work.

“Committee meetings were held only in the final phase when it was necessary to allocate funds, while project evaluations were carried out individually from home. Even in that part of the process, there were no visible pressures or attempts to influence the committee decisions,” he adds.

Although the implementation of the Unified Information System (UIS) is a significant step toward the digitalization of procedures, according to him, existing practices have revealed several serious challenges that need to be systematically addressed to improve the efficiency and quality of the work of professional committees.

“One of the biggest problems is the fact that the UIS, in its current form, does not allow committee members to correct the entered scores. Since technical or human errors can occur during project evaluations, it is essential to introduce a one-time correction option for the score before the evaluation process is finalized. This functionality would significantly contribute to the accuracy and precision of the entire process,” Kladničanin assesses.

Milan Vlajić was in three committees this year, in Jagodina, Babušnica, and Bela Palanka, even though the Association of Journalists of Serbia delegated him to over 20, as he was one of the few who was scored before the deadlines in certain municipalities.

“How transparent the evaluation process is, is debatable, but I believe that previous evaluations of projects were neither less nor more legitimate. Previously, committees would meet and members could discuss each project. Now, committee members see how each member rated a project only after everyone has scored it, and then the committee meets to propose how much funding should support a project. Now, all of this is done without discussion because the scoring is closed, so due to the number of points, some projects receive support that should not be supported, despite the good arguments of some members,” Vlajić notes.

Regarding the Unified Information System for implementing and monitoring the co-financing of projects in the area of public information, he believes that it is “full of holes.”

“Despite the good intentions to make the selection process of committee members and the evaluation of projects as fair and transparent as possible, it has led to such confusion that in the end, knowledgeable experts in project co-financing withdrew their applications for committees, and some exploited loopholes in the system to collect a larger number of points. Additionally, there were so many mistakes that were corrected during the submission of applications and projects that I believe the Ministry should not have allowed. However, everything was quickly resolved thanks to the Ministry's staff. The system still has many shortcomings, and I hope that some will be addressed by next year,” Vlajić emphasizes.

Sandra Iršević participated in committees for project co-financing of media content this year on behalf of UNS. She says she did not receive any list from the municipalities and that she guided herself by the principle that local money should remain with local media.

“Personally, I did not negotiate with other members, nor did I receive any instructions from UNS, so I scored everything according to the regulations. My personal impression is that media representatives from the majority of local environments write very poor projects,” Iršević assesses.

Her experience with representatives of local governments was varied. In some cases, she adds, the mayor greeted them, in others, the chief or they simply worked with the person who was responsible.

“They were not always satisfied with the work of the committee, but since it is about the UIS, and once a score is entered, we cannot change it, neither can the local government. Changes can only be made by the Ministry, but there were no such cases in the committees I was in. In some instances, there were discussions and conflicts of opinion with committee members, but I did not have issues with representatives of local governments. Of the 12 committees, I only had one online because my colleagues wanted it that way, but even that went smoothly with a small exchange of opinions. In short, everything is clear and transparent because the scores dictate,” Iršević notes.

As a reminder, media and journalistic associations ANEM, UNS, NUNS, Lokal Pres, and the Association of Media submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Information on August 25 of this year for changes to certain procedures in media project co-financing, including improvements to UIS, limiting the number of committees in which candidates can participate, aligning the fees for committee members, and more.

Source: ANEM

The project of the Association of Independent Electronic Media “Participatory Monitoring of the Implementation of the Project Co-Financing Process” is supported by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the MATRA program. ANEM is exclusively responsible for the content, which does not necessarily reflect the official views of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.