Support for independent and professional local media and journalists should be a national priority

The position of the media and journalists in Serbia is best illustrated by two media outlets from the south - the Regional Information Agency JUGpress, a civil society media organization that the citizens of Leskovac and southern Serbia perceive as their public service, which has been publishing in Albanian, Romani, and Bulgarian for years, and Nova Naša reč from Leskovac (the only printed media outlet south of Niš), located in the premises that were the cheapest – those of the SUBNOR, the Association of Fighters of the National Liberation War. 

The editor-in-chief and responsible editor of JUGpress, Ljiljana Stojanović, fights like a “partisan”: facing constant threats, pressures, insults, unresolved cases of endangerment of safety, and other challenges... For several months, she was accompanied by the police in a police van to meetings on journalist safety. Three years before her retirement, she had to dismiss herself because the support from state and local institutions, which they represent to protect and promote the public interest, had been reduced and denied through the project co-financing institute. On the same day, Ivan Spirić, a journalist at Nova Naša reč, also had to go to the “Employment Bureau.” Both media outlets were left without permanent employees. 

Nikola Milićević, the editor-in-chief of Nova Naša reč, Aleksandar Stojanović, a long-time collaborator, Mladen Cvetković, a law student in Niš who collaborates with JUGpress, Vlastimir Stamenković, Milica Stojanović, Slavomir Kostić, Ganja Nikolić, Ivan Kostadinović, and Vlada Stojanović work voluntarily or for a symbolic fee. 

The media support from international organizations advocating for freedom of speech and the media is decreasing, adding further pressure on their existence. 

“Many local media outlets are in a similar situation, and this is a national problem, but also an international one, because if Serbia loses its independent and professional media, the safety of citizens will also be endangered, as they will be exposed solely to lies and spin from tabloid media or the neglect of reality by public media services,” stated Veran Matić, president of the ANEM Board of Directors and member of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, during his visit to these two editorial offices and discussions with employees and the unemployed. 

The editorial team of JUGpress has also initiated a civic initiative for financial support, as a civil society media outlet plays an important role in defending the public interest, that is, in the interest of every citizen. 

“As long as the plundering of our money from the budget through project co-financing, which has been denied to independent and professional media, continues, and as long as the international community does not establish funds to support the survival of professional journalism in our country, we call on citizens to preserve their media through direct financial support, because these media outlets enable them to be objectively informed and protected from fake news,” Matić said in Leskovac, urging citizens to support their media. 

Otherwise, what is currently happening to independent and professional media in Leskovac, the sixth largest city in Serbia by population, threatens to become an epidemic that will spread more rapidly if effective remedies for the survival and work of media professionals throughout our country are not found.