Pančevo: The media landscape is divided, with disfavored editorial teams being discriminated against multiple times.

A more careful observer of social phenomena and processes in Pančevo and nearby towns – not to mention a journalist, who by the nature of their work follows events and participates in public life – would easily agree with the assertion that the media scene in this city, as well as in the entire southern Banat, is so shattered, fragmented, impoverished, atomized, and antagonized that it is difficult to say it even exists.

Although there are about eighty journalists living and working in Pančevo (in local media, as correspondents for Belgrade and Novi Sad media, or in capital city editorial offices, PR agencies, and state institutions) – plus a few retirees – communication among them is extremely sporadic and random. Physical gathering points for members of the profession have not been spontaneously established, such as informal journalist cafés, nor have any internet hubs or groups for information exchange been created on any social network.

Even less so are there reasons for communication or opportunities for in-person meetings initiated outside the industry, such as at press conferences, which have nearly vanished as a format for addressing the public, or at the unimaginable (new) year-end cocktail event that the mayor would invite journalists to.

Consequently, there are also no joint symbolic actions, such as celebrating May 3rd, World Press Freedom Day, and important places or events for the history of independent journalism – like the Jovanović Brothers Printing House – have faded from collective memory.

Since the Media Shelter was established three years ago, it has only been utilized by journalists from professional media and activists from non-governmental organizations engaged in general culture and free information dissemination.

Under such conditions, establishing a branch of any journalistic association or something akin to what was called the Journalists' Activism of Pančevo during socialism falls into the realm of fantasy.

In other words, the journalistic ecosystem as such shows no signs of life; there are neither resources nor the willingness to organize it, the causes of which we suspect lie in political motivations.

As a result, it is unrealistic to expect the manifestation of higher and more subtle forms of relationships among colleagues, such as solidarity and mutual support in cases of attacks, discrimination, or defense against lawsuits and orchestrated campaigns that politicians in power or media workers close to them occasionally launch against colleagues who conduct this work in accordance with the Code of Journalists of Serbia and the Law on Public Information and Media.

The full text can be read at ndnv.org.