The media are not being silenced; people are being silenced - Open letter from the editor: Everything is closed, competitions and doors and mouths

While there is public discourse about the shutting down of independent media, the reality is much harsher – the lives of journalists, authors, and editors are being extinguished as they are left without any income, without institutional protection, and without the chance to find employment outside of a sector that the government systematically suppresses. In the following text, we speak clearly and personally about what is being silenced – the real consequences of political repression against those who refuse to remain silent.

We are transmitting the open letter in its entirety.

OPEN LETTER To media associations, networks of civil society organizations, and all actors advocating for media freedom and human rights

Media are not being shut down in Serbia – people are being extinguished

I am addressing you as a journalist, editor, founder of the “Pravo u centar” portal, and representative of the civil society organization Center for Growth and Development, which stands behind independent local media. I write in my own name, but also in the name of many colleagues who have been working for years under nearly unbearable conditions – and who are slowly disappearing from the public space. Not because they want to. But because they have been erased.

Media are not being extinguished in Serbia – people are being extinguished. Authors. Editors. Female journalists. Employees. We are witnessing increasingly aggressive pressure on independent media, but what is most often left unspoken is that the pressures are not exerted through frequencies and portals, but through the people who create them. Attacks, targeting, economic starvation, devaluation of the profession – that is the daily reality for most of us.

Most of us engaged in independent journalism in local communities are women. And most of us have already experienced what we are now seeing spreading rapidly: attempts to intimidate, silence, and mute us – systematically and ruthlessly.

I ask you – do human rights not also imply the right to work and to a life worthy of a human being? If the answer is yes, then it is time to say clearly: in Serbia, it is not only media that are being extinguished – people are being extinguished.

The two most recent examples are the stories of the editors of IN Media and Lokal Pres. Their fates are a drop in the ocean and the fates of all of us. Those of us living this know that we number in the hundreds. Now, having publicly degraded, belittled, and mutilated us, they are taking a step further – towards complete erasure.

I personally tried to find an alternative. To leave the profession, find employment in another sector, secure a livelihood. But the doors were closed. In the reality of today’s Serbia – the more successful a company is, the more it is intertwined with the authorities. And conversely – if you are not "one of them," you do not exist.

For us, journalists of independent media, there is no alternative. There is no job. There is no security. There is no chance.

That is why I, like many others, had to make the hardest decision: to leave my home, family, and go work a seasonal job in Croatia – at 51 years old and with a diagnosis of systemic lupus. My day looks like this: 8 to 10 hours of work in a restaurant, followed by another 5 to 6 hours of work on the portal, because I cannot abandon either myself or the media I have created. Yes, it is dangerous, exhausting, and unfair – but it is the only way to survive.

And what hurts the most – is precisely the departure. And the feeling that your own state has rejected and replaced you.

I remind you: the media competition in Lazarevac expired more than a month ago. To this day, we have not received any response. And we do not need to – because we were already informed before the competition that we would not succeed. Transparent. Raw. Without shame.

That is why I write this as a member of journalistic associations, as a founder of an NGO, as a colleague, as a citizen, as a woman – and as someone who has fought for years for the public interest, for truth, for the right to be informed and free.

I write this because I know I am not alone and that this is not just about me, but about each of my colleagues.

Therefore, I call upon you to the following:

1. An urgent joint response – public or institutional – that does not merely condemn the systemic pressures on independent local media and media workers, especially women, but demands an urgent and concrete reaction.

This issue is not spoken about enough. We do not need pity, but solidarity.

2. Initiating a process of mapping and creating sustainable support models for local media and their founders.

We do not need one-off assistance – we need access to work, alternative sources of income, and systemic support to survive. We are looking for partners who will help us in this: NGO networks, donors, unions, professional associations.

3. Forming a working group of NGOs and media actors that will specifically work on:

finding mechanisms for employing journalists from endangered newsrooms in the civil society sector (as researchers, educators, trainers, communicators),

including media in projects funded by EU funds and other international sources,

creating a database for mutual resource exchange, collaboration, and mentoring support.

In that spirit, I do not ask for pity or one-time assistance – but I invite you to find ways together on how to work, earn, and live.

Bread, not applause. Partnership, not pats on the back.

Involve us. We will speak as long as we still have a voice.

Please – do not look away. Not for me, but for all of us who have not yet given up.

Because if this light is extinguished light by light – in the end, we will all be left in the dark.

Maria Popović, one of the founders of the Center for Growth and Development and editor of the “Pravo u centar” portal