MEDIA SCENE OF SERBIA IN MARCH 2025

The topics of the March Monitoring of the Serbian media scene were numerous and varied. In Monitoring, the reader can learn about the data of the international agency Amnesty International regarding the attempt to install one of the most sophisticated and invasive Pegasus spy software in the mobile phones of two BIRN journalists; about the meeting that took place in Dimitrovgrad between representatives of members of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists and representatives of local media; on the criminal complaint submitted by the CRTA association in response to the unauthorized disposal of information and documentation that occurred after the entry of the criminal police into the premises of a large number of associations; on the findings of the report published on the Platform of the Council of Europe for the Protection of Journalism and Safety of Journalists.

The special topics of the Monitoring were: reactions to the inappropriate statement of the President of the Republic of Serbia addressed to the RTS correspondent from Niš, support for the student protest from among the employees of that media, criticism directed at the reporting of their newsroom, and finally a twenty-two-hour blockade of the public service.

And during March, which was discussed in Monitoring, journalists and media suffered pressure and attacks. Nemanja Šarović was detained while reporting for KTV from Pionirski Park. While reporting from the same park, an unknown man ordered TV N1 journalist Miodrag Sovilj to move away. BIRN journalist Saša Dragojlo, who was filming the commotion among citizens protesting in front of the Serbian Progressive Party stand, was also targeted.

Journalists reporting from protests in Novi Sad, the village of Veliki Izvor, Zrenjanin and Sremska Mitrovica suffered pressure. The TV N1 team was showered with insults. There were attempts to steal the phone from Žarko Bogosavljević and journalist Brankica Matić. Glas Zaječara journalist Miljko Stojanović was physically attacked. Dijana Šćekić, journalist and editor-in-chief of Ozon Media from Sremska Mitrovica, was insulted by an unknown man. Jovan Njegović Drndak, photo editor of the newspaper Zrenjanin, was prevented from filming the protest.

As in the previous period, TV N1 was the target of various attacks. Journalists were thoroughly searched upon entering the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia. Threats and insults were received by Enes Radetinac, editor and journalist of TV A1 from Novi Pazar, Biljana Roganović, editor and journalist of Online Press from Prokuplje, Brankica Stanković, editor-in-chief of Insider Television.

The First basic public prosecution "solved" the attack on Vuk Cvijić, by establishing that the journalist was hit and pushed away by Milan Lađević, one of the co-owners and publishers of the pro-government tabloids Srpski telegraf and Republika.rs, but that he did not thereby commit the crime of violent behavior, nor any other crime for which prosecution is undertaken ex officio.

A constant chapter of this Monitoring were the troubles faced by journalists reporting in Serbian in Kosovo. The new chapter is called "Unethical in Action" and is dedicated to the visit of the President of the Republic of Serbia, accompanied by a group of journalists, to the citizens of North Macedonia who are in intensive care at the Clinical Center in Belgrade after the severe tragedy in Kočani.

In Monitoring, the reader can also be informed about the fate of the proposal of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance, the March activities of the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media and the activities of the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications in connection with the initiation of misdemeanor proceedings and the formation of a commission for evaluating projects submitted to tenders for co-financing projects in the field of public information.

You can read about all that in the Monitoring of the media scene in Serbia for March 2025.

This publication was published with the financial support of the European Union and Norway and the Balkan Fund for Democracy, a project of the German Marshall Fund of the USA. The Association of Independent Electronic Media is solely responsible for its content, and that content does not necessarily express the official views of the European Union, the Government of Norway, the German Marshall Fund and the Balkan Fund for Democracy.

This Monitoring Report was prepared by expert monitoring team from the law office "Savović" in cooperation with ANEM.