Monitoring of the Press Council: Alo, Srpski Telegraf and Informer violated the Code of Journalists of Serbia the most
(Source: NUNS) During the monitoring of nine print media in the period from 1 July to 31 December, 2023, the Press Council recorded 4141 violations of the Code of Journalists of Serbia. Alo, Srpski Telegraf and Informer had the most violations, it was announced today at the presentation of the monitoring results conducted by Tamara Skrozza and Vera Didanović.
The six-month monitoring covered nine daily newspapers distributed at the national level. Alo had the most violations (1065), followed by Srpski Telegraf (980), Informer (791), Kurir (448), Vecernje Novosti (430), Blic (229), Politka (121), Nova (62) and Danas (15).
The media outlets mostly violated the points of Chapter 4, which refers to the responsibility of journalists, 1629 times, as well as the point of Chapter 1, which refers to the truth fulfilment of reporting (1624). Also, in a very large number, the sections of Chapter 7 relating to respect for privacy (990 violations) were violated.
Tamara Skrozza said that the media in Chapter 4 violated the right to the presumption of innocence the most, and there was hidden advertising, as well as discrimination.
“What is new this year is the violation of Chapter 1, which is right next to Chapter 4, and that is the truth of reporting. We have noticed that this is primarily due to the election campaign. So, when the election campaign started, we had several violations individually by texts,” Skrozza said.
She said that there was a noticeable massive violation of Chapter 7, which relates to the protection of privacy, and in particular the obligation to protect the identity of minors.
Vera Didanovic spoke about media coverage of the election campaign.
“Most of the media reports on the ideas and activities of the authorities, but with complete silence and selective information when it comes to what is negatively related to the government and this happens in a huge number of media,” said Vera Didanovic.
She said that the media are almost completely closed to promoting the views and ideas of the opposition, which is inconsistent with the obligation of objective, completely truthful and blasphemous information.
“Reporting on the opposition is mostly negative and in the tabloids we find a huge number of unsigned articles in which untruths are presented about opposition parties and their leaders, while completely ignoring their denials,” Didanovic explained.
She added that campaigns were conducted for days in which the same texts were repeated with all violations of the Code that were consistent, and that the novelty is the transmission of posts of anonymous accounts on social networks from which headlines about “plans of the Djilasov opposition” are drawn.
“These are the headlines ‘if we lose the elections, we will burn down the state‘, ‘they would set the state on fire again’, without any evidence of this, in violation of several different provisions of the Code. Also, opposition representatives are unfoundedly associated with people who are labeled as enemies of Serbia, Kurti, Ustashas, this evil West and the like,” explained Vera Didanovic.
Pro-government media have published government reactions to statements and attitudes of the opposition that they have not previously reported, she added.
Tamara Skrozza said it was interesting that the tabloids accused the Nova and Danas newspapers of violating the electoral silence and cheering for one side and being very active in these accusations.
In addition to politics, reporting in the crime section is also problematic, while media coverage on show business has expanded to write about the participants of the reality show and their relatives, friends or neighbors, who are unknown to the general public.
Author: Ivana Kragulj