“Journalism Is and Must Be a Highly Ethical Profession” – Gordana Novaković and Vera Didanović on the New Press Council Handbook

(Source: Dijalog.net) Two of the three authors of the handbook “Implementation of the New Provisions of the Serbian Journalists’ Code of Ethics” speak to Dijalog Net about media campaigns, editors’ responsibility, and why the fight for ethical journalism is more important today than ever before.

In the first ten months of implementation of the new Code, the number of citizens’ complaints about the work of the media increased by almost one hundred percent. As many as seventy percent of all violations were concentrated in only two chapters of the document: Respect for Dignity and Responsibility to the Public.

The new handbook “Implementation of the New Provisions of the Serbian Journalists’ Code of Ethics,” through the analysis of concrete cases from the practice of the Press Council Complaints Commission, deals precisely with this factual state of the media scene in Serbia. The handbook was prepared by journalists Tamara Skrozza, Vera Didanović, and Gordana Novaković (Secretary General of the Press Council).

We spoke with Vera Didanović and Gordana Novaković about the challenges of implementing the Code, the limits of journalistic responsibility, and the hope that ethical journalism can survive.

“Society Is Slowly Boiling and Accepting Rampant Media Behavior as Normal”

The handbook does not shy away from difficult examples. Among other things, it analyzes the cases of prosecutors Bojana Savović and Jasmina Paunović, who were targets of coordinated media attacks for months, as well as brothers Lazar Stojaković and Luka Stojaković, students whose passports appeared on tabloid front pages accompanied by accusations that they were “Croatian agents destroying Serbia.”

We asked Vera Didanović whether there is a point at which such campaigns cross from damaging reputation into posing a real threat to safety.

“It is difficult to speak about a concrete moment. It is a process that is harmful from the very beginning for the people who are targeted,” Didanović explains. “Serbia is going through a continuous process of deteriorating social conditions, increasing polarization, and growing aggression, which day by day increases the danger media campaigns pose to the safety of their targets.”

She uses a striking image to describe what is happening to social consciousness: “Like in that experiment with the galvanized frog, society is slowly boiling and accepting the unrestrained behavior of part of the media as normal, without thinking about the price of such conduct.”

And the price, the handbook shows, is becoming ever greater. Particularly worrying is a phenomenon the Commission noticed during 2025 — identical, often unprofessional and offensive texts appearing simultaneously across several media outlets.

“If on the same day, in several different media outlets, an entirely identical text appears with the same theses, interviewees, and Code violations, then it is completely clear that this is material prepared in one center. That cannot be journalism, but only a targeted action that has nothing whatsoever to do with the public interest,” Didanović said categorically.

She nevertheless admits that the instruments for fighting such practices are limited: “The Press Council can notice such phenomena and draw attention to them, but it has no other instruments of action. Saying that something is falsified, stolen, planted, or done in some other unacceptable way has little effect in a society where shame has been abolished.”

“Every Editor Must Decide Every Day – That Is Their Responsibility”

One of the most sensitive issues addressed by the handbook is the transmission of statements made by public officials on social networks. The Commission, for example, considered the case of an Instagram address by Aleksandar Vučić in which insults and threats were expressed (“bandits,” “thugs,” “I will disperse all the thugs”). By majority vote, it was decided that there had been no violation of the Code, because the public has the right to know what the president thinks.

Gordana Novaković believes that the key issue there is context and editorial judgment.

“I think your question itself already set that boundary — it is always the public interest. Every editor must decide every day what to publish and how to publish it; that is their responsibility. In doing so, they should be guided by professional standards, not by the interests of officials.”

Indeed, Responsibility of Journalists is one of the chapters of the Code that was significantly clarified in the new version. It explicitly states that “responsibility to the public must not be subordinated to anyone’s interests” (publishers, corporations, governments, or other state authorities).

“Journalism Is and Must Be a Highly Ethical Profession”

The handbook does not end merely by identifying problems. It also offers a set of concrete recommendations: organizing public debates, training young journalists, and intensifying cooperation with universities. We asked Gordana Novaković what she would like a journalism student to take away from this analysis as the most important lesson.

“That journalism is and must be a highly ethical profession and that it carries great responsibility,” Novaković replied. “That the job of a journalist is to inform the public, not to judge; that the public interest stands above everything else; that there are no ‘alternative facts’… And that one must fight continuously for all of that.”

A special chapter of the handbook is devoted to the stigmatization of civil society organizations and their members, who are regularly labeled in part of the media as “foreign mercenaries,” “Soros mercenaries,” or “destroyers of Serbia.” How can the media dismantle such narratives while remaining professional?

“By insisting on facts and evidence and by pointing out false and offensive qualifications, while respecting all professional rules. The media must under no circumstances fall into the trap (which unfortunately sometimes happens) of responding in the same way, because if you do something impermissible, it becomes irrelevant which side you are on.”

“If We Want to Live in This Country, We Must Fight for It”

At the end of the conversation, we returned to what may be the most discouraging fact of all — the handbook’s finding that fewer than ten percent of complaints are resolved through apologies, corrections, or the removal of disputed content. In such an environment, where media outlets ignore both self-regulatory decisions and basic logic, where do the authors find motivation?

“If we want to live in this country, then we must fight for it,” Vera Didanović says. “Creating a decent democratic society is in the interest of all citizens, and we can achieve it only if everyone does their job as best they can while respecting the rules. Our job is, among other things, to insist on respect for ethics in journalism as one of the important pillars of democracy.”

This handbook, despite all the limitations of the system in which it was created, is precisely that — an act of struggle. A struggle for a profession that must not give up on truth, dignity, and responsibility toward those for whom it exists — the citizens.

About the Interviewees:

Gordana Novaković, Secretary General of the Press Council

Vera Didanović, journalist with many years of experience, engaged in media ethics issues at the Press Council.

Author: Aleksadar Milijašević