During the last three years, less and less money has been awarded in tenders for the co-financing of media content, and a noticeable decrease in the number of tenders announced and the number of total projects submitted, according to the Press Council’s research “Co-financing of media that violate ethical standards 2019-2021.”
Such trends are directly contrary to the objectives of the media strategy for the period 2020-2025, in which it is stated that the non-announcement of tenders is one of the main types of economic pressure of local authorities on media that are not loyal to the regime.

The research also showed that the media that violated the Code of Journalists of Serbia in the year preceding the competition still received funds, but also that the number of co-financed projects of such media was smaller. It is also noticeable that in 2020 and 2021 these media competed with fewer projects than in 2019.
This outcome was probably influenced by the work of the Press Council, which enabled citizens to submit complaints for violations of the Code of Journalists and informed local governments that announce competitions about which media did not respect the ethical standards of the profession.

Read the research “Co-financing media that violate ethical standards”.  The research was conducted within the project “Building trust in the media in Southeast Europe and Turkey – phase two”, which was supported by the European Commission and UNESCO.

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