ANEM Research: Deteriorated Condition of Local Media in Serbia in 2025 – Rated at 2.23
The situation and conditions under which journalists of local media in Serbia operate have further deteriorated in 2025. The rating given by media representatives is 2.23 for the previous year, compared to a score of 2.53 a year earlier, according to the research "Indicators of the State of Local Media in Serbia for 2025: A Case Study of Eight Cities and Municipalities and One Region," conducted by the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM).
The research conducted as part of the project "Participatory Monitoring of the Implementation of Co-Financing Projects," supported by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the MATRA program, involved 79 journalists from local media across several cities in Serbia.
The results were classified individually for eight cities - Subotica, Novi Sad, Požarevac, Kragujevac, Čačak, Novi Pazar, Niš, and Vranje, as well as one region that included respondents from Zaječar, Bor, and Negotin. Responses from locations where there were not enough respondents for a case study were analyzed in the chapter titled “Other Cities.”
The interviewees assessed the following areas – media freedom, the economic position of journalists, the safety of media workers, and access to information, using ratings from 1 to 5 for the years 2024 and 2025, in order to observe how the situation in which local media operate has changed over the course of a year.
The lowest rating of 1.87 pertains to the economic position of journalists, which represents a significant decline compared to 2024, when the same indicator was rated at 2.16.
Media freedom in the past year was rated at 2.23, in contrast to 2.52, which was assessed in the previous period.
The rating for access to information at the local level fell from 2.45 to 2.2, with the most significant decline compared to the previous year recorded in terms of the safety of media workers – from 3 to 2.63.
The highest rating regarding media freedom was given by participants from Kragujevac – 2.83. The economic position was rated best in Novi Pazar – 2.6. According to a rating of 3.86, the safety of female and male journalists is at the highest level in Požarevac, while access to information was rated best in Novi Pazar – 2.6.
The lowest ratings were recorded in Novi Sad for all four indicators: media freedom - 1.33, economic position - 1.5 (the same as in Vranje), safety - 1.33, access to information - 1.67.
The complete findings of the research are available at this link.
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