SERBIA'S MEDIA SCENE IN JUNE 2023
Monitoring of the media scene is carried out with the aim of continuous monitoring of events and processes that affect the state of media freedom in the Republic of Serbia.
The authors of the monitoring deal with: freedom of expression; monitoring the implementation of existing regulations; by adopting new regulations, but also by amending and supplementing the current ones, both from the field of media, and from other areas that directly or indirectly affect the freedom of the media; as well as by analyzing SLAPP lawsuits (strategic lawsuits against public participation) directed against journalists and media.
Freedom of speech
Analyzed in detail in the report for the month of June are the case of journalist Boško Savković; the case of Brankica Stanković, the editor-in-chief of the Insajder media; the case of the portal Info-Vranjske; the case of the portal JuGmedia; the case of Ivan Ivanović, the host of the show on Nova S; the case of Olivera Vladković, owner of OK Radio and Svetlana Ivanov, employee of OK Radio, as well as the case of Vojin Radovanović, journalist of the Danas newsroom.
Implementation of existing regulations
When it comes to project co-financing, the committee for evaluating projects in the territory of the city of Niš proposed for the year 2023 that 31 projects be co-financed with 69.5 million dinars. The majority of the funds totaling 21.7 million dinars (183,898 EUR) were received by two legal entities owned by the Radomirović family from Niš, which is close to the local government. Funds were also allocated to a company that is officially owned by the son of a high-ranking SNS member and Minister of the Interior, Bratislava Gašić, and the report lists all the media that received funds from the city of Niš, including the agency for office-administrative affairs and the Society of Serb-Czech friendship. In June, the mayor of the city of Pančevo signed the Decision on the distribution of funds for co-financing projects in the field of public information, and the City of Pančevo allocated an amount of 42 million dinars for that purpose. Almost half of the total budget belonged to the production "SCTV production LLC Pančevo", which will realize its project on "TV Pančevo". Money from the budget was also received by legal entities that are not located in the territory of Pančevo, but are from Belgrade, Vršac, Novi Sad, etc. Money was also given to the media, which often violate the Code of Journalists of Serbia and which should not receive support from the budget. Examples of this are the Belgrade-based "Alo media system LLC Beograd" for the project in the daily newspaper "ALO!", "Insider team LLC Belgrade - Stari grad" for the project that will be implemented by the "Internet portal Informer", "Medijska mreža LLC Belgrade - Stari grad" for the project that will be implemented by the internet portal "Republika.rs".
Monitoring of the process of adoption of new laws
In mid-May, the Ministry of Internal and Foreign Trade established a working group for amendments to the Law on Advertising. It was noticed that the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications, which is responsible for implementing the Media Strategy, was not informed about the establishment of the working group itself. On this occasion, the Coalition for Media Freedom issued a statement pointing out this failure of the Government of the Republic of Serbia in the implementation of the Media Strategy and called for representatives of the relevant media associations to be included in the working group, in order to establish coordination between the various working groups that were established for the purpose of making changes and amendments of media and other relevant laws within the Media Strategy.
SLAPP lawsuits directed at journalists and media
After three lawsuits filed against investigative portal BIRN earlier this year, a fourth has arrived. After the mayor of Belgrade Aleksandar Šapić (two lawsuits) and Predrag Koluvija, the owner of the Jovanjica company who was accused of organizing a criminal group that grew tons of marijuana, a new SLAPP lawsuit was also filed by Nenad Milanović, the chief of staff of the mayor of Belgrade. Milanović filed a lawsuit against BIRN and its editor-in-chief Milorad Ivanović because, as he claims, his honor and reputation were injured by the publication of the text about agreements with the Turkish company Kentkart. Ivanović, commenting on the filed lawsuit, stated that this is another SLAPP lawsuit and that these lawsuits are not being filed to satisfy any justice, but to exhaust journalists and editorial staff.
This publication was published with the financial assistance of the European Union. The Association of Independent Electronic Media is solely responsible for the content of this publication, and this content in no way expresses the official views of the European Union.
Publicly available data, data obtained from journalists, editors and other media workers, journalist associations and media associations, as well as state and non-state bodies are used for monitoring.
The monitoring report was prepared by ANEM's expert monitoring team from the "Živković & Samardžić" law office, and the entire report can be found at this link.
