Press Council: Political interests must not be ahead of public interest
(Izvor: NUNS) The last session of this year’s Press Council Complaints Commission was held last night in Belgrade. Members of the Commission decided that the newspaper Alo violated the Code of Journalists of Serbia on several counts.
At this meeting, the Commission decided on one complaint. Mp and president of the opposition People’s Movement of Serbia Miroslav Aleksic, through his proxy, complained about a series of articles about him that were published in the printed edition of Alo.
Aleksic complained about five articles published between October 18 and 24 in which he was described as a ” repeater”, “F student” and “corrupt politician” and accused of embezzling public money along with his father-in-law.
Some of the headlines published in Alo read: “He plays an honest man, and with his father-in-law stole state money”, 55 million in his pocket for fictitious jobs”, “Here’s how Aleksic and his father-in-law hired. They pocketed 55 million!”, “Aleksic and father-in-law took millions from workers”, “Aleksic raised millions in cash”, “Aleksic pushed fake projects. Was protected by G17” etc.
Along with the texts, photographs of Miroslav Aleksić and his father-in-law were published.
Aleksic claims that these texts presented “untrue, insulting and unverified information” and that his reputation and honor were damaged.
According to his proxy, Aleksic has not been contacted by anyone from the Alo newspaper regarding the allegations in the text, and he also stressed that Aleksic has never been criminally convicted or any criminal proceedings have been initiated against him.
Aleksić did not deny these texts to the editorial board, but he publicly denied these allegations in the media and in the (National) Assembly, and he believed that it makes no sense to send a denial to the editorial office, especially since, as stated in the complaint, these texts are aimed at discrediting Alelsić, and not informing citizens.
Alo: Aleksic is a public figure and must endure criticism
The proxies of the publishers of the newspaper Alo, The Law Office Isailović and partners in response to the complaint completely dispute Aleksic’s allegations.
They call that the complainant is a public figure and is obliged to endure criticism relating to his work. They also state that the complainant has already filed lawsuits with the Higher Court against the newspaper Alo and that he has no interest in conducting proceedings before professional associations due to the disputed texts, and they suggested that the Press Council dismiss the complaint as unfounded.
At the beginning of the discussion, Press Council Secretary General Gordana Novakovic said that the fact that Aleksić filed lawsuits does not mean that he does not have the right to complain to the Press Council, because these are two completely separate proceedings.
Commission: If someone is a public figure, it does not mean that the media can publish anything without evidence
Olivera Milosevic, who represents the Association of Journalists of Serbia in the Commission, said that she agreed with the proposal of the Press Council and added that she believes that the right to privacy in this case was also violated.
“If we were to make a decision that this was not a violation, we would practically disenfranchise this point and open the door to discrediting anyone who has the prefix public figure or official with their name,” Milosevic said, adding that criticism of public figures is fine, but with arguments, evidence and in accordance with professional standards.
Tamara Skrozza, a representative of the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia, agreed with Olivera Milosevic when it comes to privacy violations.
“A large part of these texts are related to the father-in-law, who would not be the subject of the media at all if he were not Miroslav Aleksic’s father-in-law. We have situations where tabloids are ‘poking around’ with families just because they are people who do not think the same politically as the editors of these media,” Skrozza said.
Filip Švarm, who represents the Media Association in the Commission, said that he first heard about Miroslav Aleksic’s father-in-law from Aleksandar Vucic in one of his addresses to the nation.
“Vucic directly introduced his father-in-law as a political figure. And now we have a father-in-law as a magnate from Trstenik. The whole story about Aleksić revolves around the father-in-law. He is not a public figures. Simply, this is the mudslinging against a man who happens to be Miki Aleksic’s father-in-law,” Švarm said.
Another representative of the Media Association, Zlatko Čobović, proposed that the Commission also votes on concealment of facts.
“The text says they ‘pocketed’, ‘robbed’, ‘took by force’ and so on from 2009 to 2012. According to me, the fact is that the text did not state that from 2012 (until when the alleged abuses took place), until 2023, the state authorities neither questioned Aleksic nor questioned these circumstances,” Čobović said.
In the end, Filip Švarm added that all these texts look like they were written by someone from the Serbian Progressive Party and took them to Alo to publish, because they are just a confirmation of what Aleksandar Vucic is saying in his addresses to the nation.
Alo violated the Code on several counts
Members of the Complaints Commission unanimously ruled that the Alo newspaper had violated the Code on multiple grounds.
All points of the Code concerning the truthfulness of reporting, primarily accurate, objective and complete reporting, have been violated. Then, provisions relating to independence from pressures, in the sense that economic and political interests must not influence editorial policy. The reasoning is that the texts clearly show political alignment.
Since the sources of information in the texts are anonymous and there are not several independent sources confirming the information, and at the same time omitting facts that may affect public judgment, the Commission decided that journalists of the newspaper Alo did not act with due journalistic care.
Journalists’ responsivbility provisions were also violated. Namely, a journalist is responsible to readers and must not subordinate this responsibility to other interests.
In the end, the Commission decided that Alo in this case also violated the privacy, dignity and integrity of the people it wrote about.
Video of the Session of the Complaints Commission