SĆF: The candidate for the REM Council presented falsehoods while defending Pink and Hepi.

The Culture and Information Committee of the Assembly of Serbia, which is meeting tomorrow, must reject the candidacies of Stevica Smederevac and Žarko Simović for members of the Council of the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media (REM), according to the Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation (SĆF).

The Foundation reminds that these two candidates, proposed by the Protector of Citizens and the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance, have been working in various departments of REM for quite some time – Smederevac for 13 years and Simović for 20 years.

In this way, SĆF points out in a post on X, they have participated in the non-transparent and unlawful operations of the Regulator.

If Simović and Smederevac have not been bothered to work for years in an entity that has been rightly criticized by the professional public for operating in the interest of the authorities and media moguls – SĆF doubts that, as members of the REM Council, they would today approach the regulation of electronic media in a professional and independent manner, the statement says.

The Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation emphasizes that the Culture and Information Committee of the Assembly of Serbia must ensure that professionals of integrity enter the REM Council, and must prevent REM from continuing to violate laws and operate under the influence of the authorities.

Smederevac: Pink and Hepi operate legally

How can Stevica Smederevac assert that, considering he has defended television stations such as Pink and Hepi against claims of legal non-compliance?

Following the mass shootings in May 2023, REM presented a report on the supervision of national television stations Pink, Hepi, Prva, and B92, primarily focusing on violence, as this was the most important topic in Serbia at the time. According to SĆF, the REM report on violence did not mention this issue at all.

Smederevac then responded to public criticisms that these television stations do not comply with laws and programming guidelines, which are conditions for obtaining national licenses.

“Most of these media fully meet the legal requirements by all parameters, and that is good news and a great relief. For years we have discussed how to achieve these levels. This time, media service providers took their licenses and their guidelines quite seriously, so they made an effort to meet all the required conditions this year, at least regarding genre structure,” said Stevica Smederevac at the meeting of the Culture and Information Committee on May 17, 2023.

The Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation highlights that it has analyzed the compliance of Pink and Hepi's programming with their own guidelines and concluded that Smederevac is not telling the truth: “For example, Pink did not fulfill more than 50% of the commitments from its programming guidelines.”

TV Hepi did not perform any better – with 57% informative content and 40% reality shows, it hardly had room for other programming genres. Additionally, it spread propaganda, hate speech, and misinformation.

Is Simović’s software malfunctioning?

Žarko Simović, in his application for the Council membership, states that he designed software for monitoring media service providers. The Foundation has suggested he have someone take a look at that software, “since it seems to be malfunctioning – REM has not noticed the blatant violations of the law on television for years.”

The Foundation previously published proposals for the Committee to also reject the candidacies of Miloš Garić, advisor to the Minister of Information, as well as the editor of the political section of the newspaper Politika Bojan Bilbija, also emphasizing that they do not meet the legally prescribed conditions for members of the REM Council.

Source: Cenzolovka