Press Council: State representatives must communicate with journalists
(Source: NUNS) Mediaportal and Alo.rs violated several points of the Code, while Nova S, N1 and Jugpress journalists did not violate the Code and have the right to a slight exaggeration in the wording of the title, the Press Council Complaints Commission decided at last night’s regular session
Mediaportal misleads readers
The first complaint that the Commission considered was the one that Milovan Glišić sent against Mediaportal for publishing on the website with the title “Initiated proceedings against the former director of ED Čačak“, which was published on September 28.
He wrote in the appeal that the allegations that proceedings had been brought against him were untrue in that announcement.
“Contrary to the rules of the journalistic profession, it is not stated who initiated the proceedings, nor why it was initiated, nor was I given the opportunity to respond to the accusations,” Glisic said.
Along with the appeal, he submitted the Certificate of the Basic Court in Gornji Milanovac as proof that no criminal proceedings were being conducted against him.
He asked the Commission to make a decision on the violation of the Code because he believes that Mediaportal by publishing the aforementioned content on the Facebook page violated his right to the presumption of innocence, made unfounded accusations and defamation and violated his right to dignity.
Mediaportal did not respond to this complaint.
The discussion was opened by Jelena Petković from the Association of Journalists of Serbia. She agreed with the proposal of the decision that the Code was violated and added that this publication misled its readers.
Tamara Skrozza from the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia said that it is very rare that the media violates the first point of the Code relating to the truthfulness of reporting.
Local Press representative and Chairman of the Complaints Commission Nadežda Budimović added that there are no facts in the Mediaportal’s publication.
“It can be a lack of facts because no fact is even presented in this sentence,” said Nadezhda Budimovic.
After a brief discussion, the Commission unanimously decided that Mediaportal had violated the Code in the provisions concerning the truthfull reporting, i.e. that it had not been reported objectively and completely. Other violations relate to unfounded allegations, lack of source of information, violation of the presumption of innocence, right to privacy and non-compliance with facts.
The government does not communicate with journalists, then it complains.
Katarina Tomasevic, President of the Working Group for Drafting the Law on Amendments to the Law on Electronic Media, has sent a complaint to the Commission regarding several articles published on nova and N1 portals, concerning the process of adopting the Law on Electronic Media.
In the complaint, she alleged that United Group’s media were waging an “orchestrated campaign” against the Working Group for drafting a draft law on amendments to the law on electronic media. Namely, Tomasevic stated that the “claims” in the texts of these media outlets are that the provision according to which “media services of television for which a license has been issued for the entire territory of the Republic of Serbia, the operator is obliged to position immediately after the basic programs of the public media service” added “overnight in order to shut down the SBB” is incorrect.
Her explanation is that the law has not been substantially changed except that the proposal was adopted that on the zero channel there are service information on the content of the operator’s offer, and that the provision that behind the public media service there are channels with national coverage was publicly presented on the website of the Ministry of Information and that journalists and media associations were familiar with it.
Tomasevic further reproaches the United Group media that they have conveyed erroneous information that REM is in charge of determining the operator’s costs and possibly revoking the license. As she says, RATEL is in charge of this.
In her complaint, she also resented the Press Council for failing to respond to United Group media coverage.
“It is surprising that you did not find it appropriate to speak out, and protect the professional public, but also all citizens, from aggressive manipulation of facts that comes from the United Group media, especially bearing in mind that you yourself are involved in the adoption of these draft laws and that you yourself know that the theses that citizens can hear and read in these media simply do not correspond to the truth.”, According to Katarina Tomasevic‘s complaint.
In response to the complaint, the Editorial Board of N1 wrote that Katarina Tomašević’s complaint does not meet the formal requirements in order to be considered for consideration because, according to the Rules of Procedure of the Complaints Commission, the appeal must relate to specific content that has been published in the media, which in this case is not specified and the appeal must be submitted by a person injured by the published content or any member of the Commission.
The Editorial Board of N1 also responds that the complaint is “unclear, so it cannot be acted upon in this sense either” and that “only flat-rate assessments about the alleged falsity of the information that were published” are cited, and claim that there is no violation of the Code of Ethics in N1’s reporting, noting that they also asked for a reaction from the so-called other side, but that no one answered their questions.
Nova S did not respond to the complaint.
A representative of the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia, Milena Vasic, said that any decision other than rejecting the appeal would be direct interference in editorial policy, i.e. in reporting on an issue of exceptional public importance.
“I think that in reporting on such things that directly affect the political rights of citizens, a certain level of exaggeration is allowed when it comes to ‘media darkness’ because media topics are so important and we are so burdened with suppression of media freedom that I think it is completely appropriate to reject this appeal,” explained Milena Vasic.
Public representative Rodoljub Sabic agreed with Milena Vasic and added that a few harsher words were completely appropriate to this kind of controversy.
“This is the standard level of public criticism in relation to some failure of the authorities and they are obliged to suffer more than an ordinary citizen would be obliged to suffer,” Sabic said.
Jelka Jovanovic from the Media Association said that this case shows how opaque the entire process of passing media laws was.
“I know how hard it was to get reliable information. Mrs. Tomasevic would have done more for the whole process if she had given information, which was in her description of work tasks,” said Jelka Jovanovic.
Jelena Petkovic of the Association of Journalists of Serbia agreed with Jelka Jovanović.
“It would be good for someone who leads the working group to establish a channel of communication with the media, to explain and express their opinion. Ms. Tomasevic said they were too busy to answer reporters’ questions. I don’t know how they thought the media knew something they couldn’t,” Petkovic explained.
General Secretary of the Press Council Gordana Novaković stressed that the claim in the complaint that the Council was involved in drafting this law was not accurate and that she knew it because she led a working group in which there were no representatives of the Press Council.
In this case, the Commission also unanimously decided that neither N1 nor Nova violated the Code.
Journalists have the right to say when they feel threatened.
Zvezdan Knežević filed a complaint against the Regional News Agency Jugpress on the occasion of publishing an article on the Jugpress portal entitled “Lawyer threatened Jugpress by burning down the building and people because of the interview with Živojin Stefanović about October 5“.
In the complaint, he stated that the editor-in-chief of jugpress portal Ljiljana Stojanović inaccurately and unobjectionably reported on his comment on the Facebook page of the portal “changing during the editorial processing of the facts and the meaning of my comment by publishing an untrue title”.
“It is incorrect that in my earlier comments I expressed very clear hostility towards Jugpress,” Knezevic said.
He considers that in this way a violation of the Code relating to the veracity of the reporting was committed.
His answer was published on the Jugpress portal.
In response to the complaint, Jugpress Editor-in-Chief Ljiljana Stojanović stated that the text to which he refers was published a screenshot of his comment ary that members of the editorial staff perceived as a threat and that they informed the members of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists about it.
“Based on their report, the Basic Prosecutor’s Office in Leskovac initiated the procedure of taking statements from journalist Ivan Spiric, who was conducting an interview with Živojin Stefanović at his request (Stefanović’s) on the occasion of the anniversary of the Five October changes. Knezevic directly called Spiric on jugpress’s Facebook page, addressing him with the words “Ivan, do you know what you’re doing?” and he also called him on the phone, about which Spiric made a statement in the prosecutor’s office. The Prosecution also took a statement from me, as editor-in-chief of the Regional Information Agency JUGpress. They also took a statement from Knezevic,” ljiljana Stojanovic explained.
In addition to the response to the complaint, a screenshot of Knežević’s comments was provided, as well as his reaction to the text published on jugpress’s portal.
Speaking about this case, Olivera Milosevic from the Association of Journalists of Serbia assessed that it may be an exaggerated reaction when Jugpress journalists say that it is a threat, but that they have the right to do so.
“But certainly this history of targeting them as media and individual journalists in such small communities can be a trigger for people who can interpret in a negative way what he says, which is that they make big money, that the origin of it is not known, that they are mercenaries… I think it’s a dangerous phenomenon and maybe they have the right to be sensitive to such announcements,” Milosevic said.
Milena Vasic said that the title is a bit problematic, but that she agrees that there can be a certain level of sensitivity, given that the comments come from someone who is not a layperson.
“That’s why he’s a lawyer. Because he has a very good command of language and can walk along that fine line between threat and freedom of expression,” Vasic said.
Jelena Petkovic added that Kenžević sent a large number of comments to Jugpress journalists and that she understands that they felt threatened by it.
As in the previous case, the Commission decided unanimously that Jugpress did not violate the Code.
Alo is violating the Code again on multiple counts.
Because of the text published on October 21 on the portal Alo.rs titled “Almost A Fight Broke Out: Bojan Elek accused Igor Bandović of stealing 300,000 euros from sponsors“, Igor Bandović sent a complaint to the Commission through his representatives.
The complaint stated that the text violated the provision on the truth of reporting by “in the very text portal Alo.rs refers to the “eyewitnesses” of events, about which nothing is known and which are in no way verifiable, hiding the identity of such a source”.
Also, they believe that the provisions concerning the responsibility of journalists have been violated because in the controversial text Bandović is accused of running the organization (Belgrade Center for Security Policy) solely for personal interests, that he is prone to alcohol and that he clashes with associates.
The complaint also asks the Commission to investigate whether the text violated the provision on journalistic attention and respect for privacy.
They indicate that Alo did not contact Bandovic regarding the allegations they published.
“Alo media system” in its response challenged the allegations in the appeal.
Namely, the publisher of the portal Alo.rs explains that “in the disputed text he is not labeled as the perpetrator of any criminal offense”.
“The prosecutor’s conduct, which is the subject of reporting in the disputed text, could be characterized as an act of committing many criminal offenses, but media journalists Alo.rs this behavior did not give legal qualification,” Alo explained.
They believe that the Code was not violated and that Alo journalists professionally reported on the Belgrade Security Conference as an event of public interest, at which the alleged conflict between Igor Bandovic and Bojan Elek took place.
At the beginning of the discussion regarding this case, Tamara Skroza noted that the content in Alo is not a journalistic article.
“There are serious issues here concerning the privacy of Igor Bandovic. He is accused of being an alcoholic and so on. That’s an issue of privacy. We know that this is not true because we know the man, but also that if it was true, it is protected data. This is not in public interest, he is not a state official”, said Tamara Skrozza and added that the information that Alo presented is nottrue, that not everything played out as Alo writes.
Rodoljub Šabić said that it was a treacherous text from a recognizable “kitchen”.
“The event really existed, there was a heated debate, but related to the conference. This is a completely malicious, perfidious text. It’s not a journalistic text. This text aims to discredit both Bandovic and the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy,” Šabic said.
Filip Švarm of the Association of Media said that the text in Alo was written in advance.
“They used all the gossip they had previously published to put in Eleka mouth. They seemed to be waiting for something to happen and to attack both The Center and Bandovic,” Švarm said.
The Commission decided that Alo violated the Code in the provisions relating to the truth of reporting, i.e. that it did not report accurately, objectively, timely and fully. Provisions relating to failure to cite the source of information, publishing unfounded accusations, respect for privacy and journalistic attention were also violated.