News

Radio Television of Serbia has announced a competition for the appointment of the Director and Chief Editor of the First Program of Radio Belgrade, both positions for a term of four years.

The expert analysis by the OSCE largely aligns with what representatives of civil society asserted during discussions with the ruling majority before leaving the previous meeting of the parliamentary committee, where candidates for the REM Council were discussed.

Radio Television of Serbia and Radio Television of Vojvodina will most likely not receive new Programming Councils within the legal timeframe, and consequently, neither will they have Commissioners for the protection of the rights of listeners, viewers, and readers, as stipulated by the latest Law on Public Media Services.

Hybrid attacks on journalists and media are most commonly used - targeting, insults, threats, disturbing messages, physical attacks, and groundless lawsuits that cause significant damage to the media. Such baseless lawsuits consume a lot of time for journalists and editors running the media, said Veran Matić, President of the Board of the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) and a member of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, while appearing on Nova S television program.

The Ministry of Information and the Ombudsman Zoran Pašalić urgently responded to the alleged "exploitation of a child for political purposes" on RTS, while programs on national television or Informer that incite violence do not disturb them in the least.

The state has targeted Radar journalist Vuk Cvijić, known for his uncompromising investigation of security services. In just the last few months, the police have beaten him while he was reporting from protests, an armored police officer blinded him for an hour, there is a campaign against him in pro-regime media, and he has also received a criminal charge from EPS and the police that come to his home while he is on vacation.

Radio is listened to by 72 percent of millennials and 64 percent of Generation Z in Serbia, according to this year's research conducted by Ipsos.

Representatives of the Council of Europe, the European Union, and the United Nations in Belgrade assessed that journalism in Serbia is "under attack," meaning that media workers are endangered, emphasizing that free journalism is a pillar of every democratic society and that governments must protect journalists.

The Association of Journalists of Serbia (UNS) protests against the campaign being waged by tabloids against the responsible editor of the RTS Children’s Program, Jelena Popadić Sumić, and calls on them to cease this dangerous practice.