28. 12. 2004

TV PIROT ATTACKS CONTINUE

PIROT, December 28, 2004 - The program of local council-operated TV Pirot has again come in for criticism from local politicians. Deputy Mayor Boban Vojinovic told the Pirot Municipal Assembly demanded the cutting of the station's budget and delivered a number of insults about TV Pirot's journalists. He also reiterated the Radical Party position that the broadcaster is not doing its job but simply rebroadcasting programs "from the treacherous TV B92". "Why are they broadcasting B92 on TV Pirot? This is why: to broadcast news, they get certain programs full of... if anyone has been watching... lunatic music and weird television series with weird actors in them. This is convenient for them; the journalists are slacking while the editors, instead of producing local programs, are thinking about which politicians and local authorities they can criticise on this television," said Vojinovic. Employees of TV Pirot protested against Vojinovic's claim, describing it as offensive. "It is not true that TV Pirot is a treacherous television or that it supported the bombing. Most of the employees had been mobilised for military service during that time. We have always been and will continue to be a public service in the future, despite the constant pressure of the governing system and the opposition. We have the support of people who can back this up," said the station's staff in a statement. Pirot members of the Radical Party of Serbia, whose local leader is Vojinovic, have demanded that TV Pirot stop rebroadcasting TV B92 programs, saying they would cut the station's financial support if this does not happen. The local Radical branch then issued a statement describing TV Pirot as "a service of the collapsed DOS regime and a branch of TV B92, which is a treacherous television operated by foreign intelligence agencies whose only goal is to destroy Serbia and its institutions."