Res Publika: The distribution of funds for media projects in Kragujevac this year has been announced to the detriment of Kragujevac media.

Although the final decision on the distribution of funds has not yet been published, the ranking list of submitted projects and the minutes from the meeting of the competition committee available on the city’s website indicate that this year’s distribution of funds has been conducted to the detriment of Kragujevac media.

It is, to say the least, unusual that Kragujevačke novine, Glas Šumadije, and Presek—media outlets that were at the top of the list of winners with the best-rated projects in previous years—have found themselves below the line this time. The competition committee did not allocate a single dinar to them, while Belgrade's Novosti received one million dinars, and the companies Internet Group and Mondo Inc. from Belgrade were each granted 800,000 dinars. The committee also highly valued the project of TV Info Plus from Vranje, which will receive 580,000 dinars from the Kragujevac budget, and a crafts and trade shop and a publishing house from Velika Plana and a production company from Kraljevo can each expect 100,000 dinars.

Among the participants from Kragujevac, the video production by Jelena Milovanović performed the best, receiving the highest amount in the competition, specifically 1.2 million dinars. She is the author of a health program that is regularly broadcast on Radio-television Kragujevac.

The Media Center, publisher of the portal U Centar, will receive 950,000 dinars, while the business entity Peto tri 1941, which operates the publicly unknown site of the same name, will receive 800,000 dinars. The same amount is to be allocated to the association Naši, publisher of the portal Infozija, which was registered in 2022. Also on the list of winners is Radio 9, which will receive 700,000 dinars from the budget, as well as Radio Zlatousti, founded by the Šumadija Diocese, which can count on 600,000 dinars.

The committee assessed that the project of one of the longest-standing radio stations, Radio 034, deserves 300,000 dinars, while the citizens' association MileniuM was awarded 150,000 dinars.

Interestingly, if the City Administration of Kragujevac accepts the proposal of the competition committee, some of the most influential local media will remain without funds from the city budget this year, even though not all available funds were allocated in the competition. Namely, a total of 12.6 million dinars was planned for co-financing media projects this year, while the committee distributed 8.8 million dinars. Therefore, we suspect that a hidden criterion led the committee to eliminate some Kragujevac editorial offices based on their reporting on student and civic protests.

We remind you that Res Publika continuously monitors public financing of the media and that due to the distribution method that raises doubts about fairness, we will request insight into all project documentation. We will continue to regularly inform the citizens of Kragujevac, as well as the general public, about how their money is being spent.

 Source: Res Publica