23. 12. 2004

MEDIA “REHABILITATING CRIMINALS”

BELGRADE, December 23, 2004 – Media are not dealing with the events of Serbia’s past, the president of the Serbian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, Sonja Biserko, said today. Instead he media are rehabilitating criminals, said Biserko, adding that the Serbian media had not given up on the illusion of uniting all Serb-inhabited countries, although this concept has been de facto dismissed. Presenting an analysis of print media and the report “Media in Serbia as part of an anti-European Front: the press: unchanged layout”, Biserko noted that there is a strong influence from the anti-Hague lobby and supports of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in the media. She added that the professional level of journalism is seriously low, that media do not take a critical role and do not follow issues of importance to the public. There is a significant problem in the absence of alternative media, while the best selling daily, Vecernje Novosti, serves nationalistic and conservative politics, she said. Biserko posits increasing the professionalism of journalists and support for alternative media such as weekly Vreme and daily Danas as the way to combat this situation. Moreover, she says, it is important to transform Radio Television Serbia into a public service and change its editorial policy in order to focus on dealing with the past. According to Biserko it is also essential to create regional media in South-Eastern Europe and combat hate speech. Journalist Nemanja Stjepanovic also criticised media reporting on Kosovo. “Media are always eager for warmongering. The number of lies and untruths being told demonstrates the behaviour of the media in their reporting of the violence in Kosovo in March and the response of KFOR. The media concealed the fact that most of those killed were of Albanian ethnicity and lost their lives in conflicts with the international troops,” said Stjepanovic.