ANNOUNCEMENT

The Board of Directors of the Press Council condemns the attacks and unfounded accusations that have been made in recent days in public against the members of the Complaints Commission and the Board of Directors, and the work of the Council itself.

The representatives of the Press Council are exposed to incomprehensible pressure and disqualifications just because of the possibility to accept the request of the editor of the newspaper Danas and decide to give an opinion on whether the newspaper violated the Code of Journalists of Serbia by publishing an interview with the actor Goran Jevtić. The disproportion between the strength of the attack and the occasion is particularly surprising, which raises additional doubts about the real reason for dealing with the self-regulatory body.

For years, the Press Council has been suffering pressure and attacks due to decisions that individuals do not like, which were particularly intensified in the process of adopting the Media Strategy and preparing new legal proposals, with the obvious intention of discrediting and marginalizing the Council. happened to be attacked so fiercely in advance.

Before the scheduled session where the request of the editor of Danas could be discussed, the Press Council was accused in several media of political alignment and corruption in a way that completely made no sense of its previous work and criminalized the members of the Commission, the Secretariat and the Administrative Board. board. Of course, any future decision of the Appeals Commission disqualifies in advance.

Since its establishment, the Press Council has been building its reputation on independence and impartiality, insisting that decisions are guided exclusively by the ethical standards of the profession, as well as on the personal and professional integrity of the members of the Complaints Commission. Confirmation of independence are the past decisions of the Commission, which has decided several times that the Code of Journalists of Serbia has been violated, even when it came to media edited by some of the members of the Council’s Board of Directors, as well as the Commission itself. Also, it is very easy to see that the members of the Commission speak only and exclusively in their own name, guided by their knowledge, experience and morals, and that, quite often, representatives of the same organization voted differently. That is why the claims that they all decide according to someone else’s dictates are meaningless and very offensive, and even more terrible are the slanders that they are corrupt.

It is difficult to count all the untruths and nonsense that have been uttered these days about the work of the Press Council, but we are obliged, first of all, for the sake of the citizens who complain to us and for whom we exist, to respond to false accusations with facts.

First of all, the very request of the editor that the Complaints Commission of the Press Council declare whether Danas violated the Code is not a precedent. The Council received such requests in the past, and the Complaints Commission was the first to declare whether it would give its opinion or not, and it will be the same this time as well. In addition, the editor of the Danas.rs portal, Bojan Cvejić, is also a member of the Complaints Commission, so he can file a complaint on that basis as well. Of course, the Commission will make a final decision on whether to issue a statement regarding this request.

When it comes to the work of the Complaints Commission itself, it is completely public and anyone on the Council’s website can learn about the content of complaints, the discussion and decisions of the Commission. Members of the Commission have the right to initiate proceedings, that is, to file appeals, and in that case, of course, they do not participate in the discussion and decision-making on that appeal. This possibility was introduced, first of all, because of cases in which it is not possible to clearly determine who is personally damaged in order to complain, and a member of the Commission assesses that someone’s rights have been violated, readers have been misled, or the public has been disturbed. Some members of the Commission use this possibility more often than others, but in any case it is a matter of sporadic cases. Intentionally or not, it is also wrongly presented that such complaints increase the number of violations only against certain media.

The monitoring of daily newspapers with national coverage, which the Council has been doing for seven years and whose data is also used by international institutions, has nothing to do with the complaints decided by the Complaints Commission. Monitoring results show, for example, that newspapers with different editorial policies – Danas and Politika – have the lowest number of violations, so claims that the Council “protects” or “punishes” the media depending on their relationship with the government are meaningless. The same is evident from the decisions of the Appeals Commission.

The Management Board of the Press Council resolutely rejects all unfounded accusations and insults uttered against the representatives of that body and expresses its regret that, above all, the members of the Complaints Commission and the Secretariat are exposed to such pressure and disqualifications because of the work they do responsibly and conscientiously.

Management Board of the Press Council:

Željko Bodrožić, President (Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia)

Živojin Rakočević, Deputy President (Association of Journalists of Serbia)

Stevan Ristić (Media Association)

Marija Obrenović (Local Press)

Zoran Sekulić (Media Association)

Belgrade, October 16, 2022.