The Press Council warned today that in Serbia the number of articles and news which is a violation of the press code is growing, adding that this behavior is culminated after the assassination of the singer Jelena Marjanović.
Print media in Serbia are deeply politicized, texts generally have no balance and represent a platform for the expression of personal opinion. Among all political actors, the most commonly represented in Serbian media is Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić, according to an analysis of newspapers from October to December 2015.
Regulations on privatization of the media in Serbia are not applied properly, according to what emerged at the conference "Civil Society on Media", organized by Civic Initiatives and the OSCE. For instance, the news agency Tanjug still broadcasts news though it should be extinguished after unsuccessful privatization.
Electronic media in Serbia mostly fail to comply with existing laws and regulations regarding the airing of appropriate contents for specific age groups. This is what emerged at the meeting on the implementation of a new system of labeling television program, held the 1st of March in Belgrade. The most common mistake made by broadcasters is the broadcasting of a particular program at an inappropriate time, and the failure to mark programs with stamps clarifying to that age is a program tailored. The regulatory body for the electronic media is to impose more warnings and penalties, including temporary ban on broadcasting, but for a more effective regulation of the issue it is necessary to impose monetary fines, it was stated at the meeting.
An investigation recently carried out among journalists is Serbia on the effects of job insecurity reveals how 40% of the interviewees would leave the profession
The privatisation of Tanjug is a perfect example of the way in which laws are circumvented in Serbia. Two months after the decision on closure, "extinguished" Tanjug engages journalists selected without publicly disclosed criteria and broadcast news.
From 2011 to 2014, 124 Serbian state institutions and companies have spent 60.9 million euros for advertising services and marketing, while the Anti-Corruption Council estimates that in this period, all national and local institutions together spent around 840 million euros.
EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn declared on 4 November, during the Speak up!3 conference, that the freedom of media and expression is the backbone of the process of integration of the Western Balkans.
Being completely uninterested in events in the region and in the world, media in Serbia mirror the tendency existing within the society in which they operate, assessed the participants of the media panel on the Danube Business Forum in Novi Sad.
