Who is he calling whom we all call?

**Written by: Ana Martinoli, media theorist and professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts**

Who do we call when threatened and attacked, the person we all reach out to in times of danger?

I often think about this these days as I watch the horrific campaign targeting Veran Matić on regime-controlled platforms. Veran is the first person that most of us working (not only) in the media call when our names appear in tabloid media as part of an unending, shameless, uncompromising witch hunt against any critical thought, dissenting voice, and resistance.

Today's campaign against Veran is not just personally disturbing; it is socially dangerous. Targeting is not criticism. Targeting is a method. It serves to send a message: "If we can do this to him, we can do it to anyone." The message conveys that there are no safe spaces, no security—anyone can become a "target." Therefore, it is crucial that we stand by Veran now and clearly call out what is happening to him before it becomes normalized and buried.

I worked at Radio B92 for eighteen years. It was a period of my life during which my professional reflexes, ethical coordinates, and sense of responsibility towards truth, justice, and civil society were ingrained in the way I think, work, and speak. And they remain with me forever. My editor and director at Radio B92, Veran Matić, is primarily responsible for this. That is why I feel the need to write something personal, which I hope will resonate with the sentences and thoughts of many journalists, media workers, local media, and non-governmental organizations. I want to stand by a man who has stood for truth, justice, and the fight against war, hatred, and destruction for three decades—when it was the most difficult and dangerous.

Veran's work is difficult to encapsulate in a standard biography. However, all of his professional and social activities, both visible and invisible to the public, demonstrate the key value of his work—continuity. Since the establishment of Radio B92 in 1989, through wars, repression, bans, political upheavals, and technological changes, the line of his action has remained the same—media freedom, freedom of speech, and journalist safety are not categories that are negotiable. Radio B92 was not just a newsroom. It was a school of professionalism and journalistic ethics in conditions where those very values often meant personal risk. Working with Veran, I learned that editorial responsibility is not measured in grand words but in daily, tough decisions: what to publish, how to protect a source, how to safeguard a reporter, how to respond to pressure, threats, or a "message." From the beginning, Veran understood that media freedom is not a romantic idea or an unattainable ideal, but the creation of a solid infrastructure—human, technical, organizational, production, and value-based. Media freedom is, in fact, a complex system of procedures, standards, mutual solidarity, steadfastness, perseverance, and care. This is often not visible from the outside. But it becomes very clear when it disappears.

Veran has created a safe space for us to fight, think, and be loud. The experience of constant vulnerability, from physical to professional, has not bred cynicism or bitterness, but rather added responsibility. It has made us aware that media freedom is never permanently won and must be defended anew, especially in Serbia—both past and present. And there are always many ways to do that.

The 1990s were a period when Radio B92 was both banned and silenced, yet it was never silenced. Just like Veran. He was detained, questioned, arrested, but he never gave up. Even when the radio was taken off the air, the voice found a way—through the internet, through international networks of solidarity, through people who believed the public had the right to know. The majority of these activities were the result of Veran's vision and his capacity to think several steps ahead, but also of all the collaborators, from news to music to culture editorial teams. Everyone had the freedom and space to think progressively, to experiment, and to create new opportunities for the voice and values of Radio B92 to be louder and more far-reaching. Veran has created a safe space for us to fight, think, and be loud. The experience of constant vulnerability, from physical to professional, has not bred cynicism or bitterness, but rather added responsibility. It has made us aware that media freedom is never permanently won and must be defended anew, especially in Serbia—both past and present. And there are always many ways to do that.

Veran's work has never been limited to just one newsroom. His engagement in protecting journalists, fighting against the impunity of attacks and murders, and building institutional support mechanisms for the profession has lasted for decades. The establishment of the Commission for Investigating the Murders of Journalists was one of the most important and challenging steps in that direction. That Commission itself has become one of the main points of attack against Veran, facing challenges, belittlement, and denial. The criticisms are always the same—the institutional framework of that Commission automatically nullifies its purpose. But the question is a simple one. Was there anyone willing to take on such a type of engagement, who has more consistently, bravely, and uncompromisingly defended journalists and understood the problems, obstacles, and challenges they face on a daily basis in Serbia under Aleksandar Vučić? Not theoretically, not declaratively, but through support and assistance in concrete cases. A person willing to endure persistence, pressure, conflict, constant challenges, and personal exposure.

I do not write this text to idealize Veran Matić. I write it because I know how to distinguish criticism from lynching, dialogue from witch hunts, public responsibility from organized jeopardization. I write it because I know how many times silence has been more costly than speech in this country.

For critics, the Commission has been an act of political loyalty. For me, it has been a brave attempt to break through the wall of silence and impunity that has surrounded the murders of journalists for decades. It could not have been an easy or "clean" job. It was a task of entering the toughest structures of the system, with a clear awareness of limitations, obstructions, and risks. Criticism of that attempt is a legitimate topic for discussion. However, disqualifying a person who has insisted on truth, justice, and the safety of journalists for decades is not.

For over three decades, Veran has built networks of professional solidarity: through journalists' associations, through establishing mechanisms for reporting threats and immediate response, through direct communication with newsrooms and individuals under pressure, through meetings with relevant authorities, pressuring institutions, and guaranteeing safety through personal contacts with the police when systemic mechanisms have failed.

All of this has enabled something simple yet crucial: when a journalist receives a threat, when their address is published, when they find themselves as a target, they are not alone. There is someone who understands the context, someone who knows how the system functions, someone who is ready to stand in front of or beside them.

In recent decades, Veran has shown that protecting journalists, in order to be effective, cannot be a theoretical exercise, but rather a daily, painstaking, often invisible practice.

I do not write this text to idealize Veran Matić. I write it because I know how to distinguish criticism from lynching, dialogue from witch hunts, public responsibility from organized jeopardization. I write it because I know how many times silence has been more costly than speech in this country.

The attacks on Veran Matić, so cruel and unscrupulous, are not just an attack on one man. They are an attack on the very idea that journalism in Serbia has the right to be free, responsible, and protected.

My support for Veran today is a support for a simple, fundamental, yet fatally endangered idea: that a journalist must not be prey, that an editor must not be a target, and that the safety of journalists is not a privilege, but the minimum of any society that calls itself democratic.

That is why I am writing this now. Not out of nostalgia, but from a professional and human conviction. The attacks on Veran Matić, so cruel and unscrupulous, are not just an attack on one man. They are an attack on the very idea that journalism in Serbia has the right to be free, responsible, and protected.

Finally, I write this text also because I want the person we first call when we are threatened and attacked to know that they are not alone. That when they are threatened and attacked, they also have someone to call to stand beside and in front of them.

**Source: [Radar](https://radar.nova.rs/misljenja/stojim-uz-verana-matica-ana-martinoli/)**