Professional standards

The Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia (NUNS) appeals to journalists and editors to strictly adhere to professional journalistic standards while reporting on events in Kosovo. Headlines like "Serb shot in Djakovica" or "Albanians shoot Serbs in the back", as well as articles beginning with the sentence "Albanians in Kosmet shot Serbs again", which were published recently in some of the Serbian media outlets, evoke memories of the period of warmongering journalism from the beginning of the nineties.
(NUNS, 04.10.2011)

The Independent Journalists' Association of Vojvodina (NDNV) condemns the reports of most of Serbian media outlets about events in Kosovo and characterizes them as "unprofessional and malicious approach to very sensitive issues". The president of the Journalists' Association of Serbia (UNS), Ljiljana Smajlovic, says that the opinion of the NDNV is not aimed to defend journalistic standards but their own political beliefs. "They see something wrong with the political opinion that is implied by the expression 'defenseless people'", adds Smajlovic.
(Pravda, 05.10.2011)

In most of the 1,586 articles and 400 TV reports about the Law on Confiscation of Property, published between 1 March 2009 and 31 March 2011, journalists were well-informed about the subject and used the terminology that was understandable to average readers, says the analysis of media reports about the Law on Confiscation of Property Acquired by Criminal Acts. In this year, interest of the media in this subject has fallen off noticeably and few articles and items have been published about the issue.
(Beta, Danas, 29.09.2011)

A fake page of the Nobel Foundation featured a news which said that Dobrica Cosic had won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The "news" caused numerous reactions on the internet and in the media and fooled numerous media outlets, among them The Guardian, RTV Slovenia, Index.hr from Zagreb, Radio Sarajevo, RTS, B92, Studio B... Five minutes before the official announcement, RTS reported that Cosic had won the Nobel Prize. Ten minutes later, the station apologized to its viewers and the writer.
(Danas, 07.10.2011)

At the web site used to disseminate the false information about Dobrica Cosic, unnamed hackers explained that they had acted in this way with the aim to "draw attention of the Serbian public" to the "dangerous influence (of this) politician and writer who had been active for decades and always stayed near the center of political power". "We registered the domain of the obviously false web site on 5 October 2011 as a symbolical reminder of the day when our country missed a historical opportunity to create a different and better world".
(Beta, Politika, 07.10.2011)

Members of the Complaints Committee of the Press Council held their first meeting on 29 September. The Committee will hold regular meetings every last Thursday in a month or more frequently as appropriate. All decisions are available to public and are posted here:www.savetzastampu.rs.
(ASMEDI Newsletter October 2011 No.161)

Appraisals, awards, training courses and competitions

A training course for Serbian journalists reporting on domestic violence was held in Nis under the auspices of the Government of Norway and the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy.
(Pravda, 30.09.2011)

The Journalists' Association of Vojvodina (DNV), which is a regional branch of the Journalists' Association of Serbia (UNS), is enrolling a new generation of students who will attend a free computer literacy training.
(UNS, 07.10.2011)

The Protector of Citizens, Sasa Jankovic, won an award for his special contribution to promotion of the right to access information and transparency in the category of public authorities, while Ministry of Defence received the award for the best Information Booklet about activities of government bodies. The awards were presented yesterday by the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance on the occasion of the International Right to Know Day.
(Danas, 29.09.2011)

The jury of the public competition "The Best Media Report on Local Self-Government", organized by the Council of Europe and the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities, will offer the winning authors the chance to visit Strasbourg and Paris between November 14 and November 18, 2011. The winners will visit 5 renowned media companies and EU institutions located in Strasbourg.
(MC, 12.10.2011)

Winners of the contest for journalistic report and photograph "Because I Love Danube" have received their awards: Radio Belgrade crew won a three-day visit to Vienna for the best journalistic report, while the first award at the photographic contest was won by Andrej Filipovic. In total, 168 articles, radio reports, TV reports and web news participated in the contest.
(UNS, 05.10.2011)

The Library of Congress from Washington has included the Ebart media archive in its regular offer. Ebart Media Archive is the first organized and all-encompassing online archive in the region. It covers the period since 2003 and contains almost three million newspaper articles. In Serbia, the Archive is available in one hundred libraries and educational institutions. Ebart management expects the archive to be used in the future by numerous foreign libraries, universities and archives, as well as to be offered by 500 libraries in Serbia.
(B92, Danas, NUNS, 10.10.2011)

On October 10 in the Country Club in Babe, USAID and IREX will organize consultations for the media industry within the Media Assistance Program. Experts from Slovakia, who are highly experienced in the media industry, will participate in the consultations. The meeting will be attended by media representatives from Serbia, among others: the editor-in-chief of Blic, Veselin Simonovic, the president of the Media Association, Sasa Mirkovic, the president of the Managing Board of the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM), Jelena Jelincic, the executive director of the Fund for an Open Society, Dragana Solomon, the head of the media department of the OSCE Mission in Serbia, and others.
(ABC Srbija Newsletter, 10.10.2011)

Before the end of the month, the Society of Journalists of Nis intends to organize a three-day seminar on reporting methods. The following topics will be covered: economy, green technologies, energy efficiency and criminal procedure. The seminar is supported by the Local Economic Development in the Balkans with a donation in the amount of 300,000 dinars. Details about the schedule of the seminar and its location will be announced later.
(Vecernje novosti, NUNS, 12.10.2011)

Media visits

A crew from Russian TV station Kanal 1 (in the majority ownership of the government) visited the editorial office of the newspaper Danas to interview its editors and journalists on the subject of the series of articles entitled "Serbia is full of Western spies, they say – so who's working for Russians?" The colleagues from Kanal 1 (www.1tv.ru) – the "successor" to the Channel 1 of TV SSSR – wanted to know what motivated Danas to investigate the subject of "pro-Russian" political, economical and intelligence factors in Serbia. Journalists Snezana Congradin and Jelena Dikovic explained them that the immediate motive were the recent diplomatic incident by the Ambassador Aleksandar Konuzin and the statements made by the leaders of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) on the eve of the United Russia congress.
(Danas, 06.10.2011)

A report about the Danas' series of articles – which was published under the title "Who's working for Russians?" – was aired in the prime time slot of the Russian government-owned TV channel. The report said that the newspaper Danas was used by Brussels as a tool in its continued attack on Russian company Gasprom and the countries that buy natural gas from Russia. The report was aired by pro-government Kanal 1 on Sunday, 9 October in the evening and was available to its 190 million viewers. The report described the series published by Danas as "scandalous".
(Danas, NUNS, 11.10.2011)

The media audience

According to information offered by AGB Nielsen, all cable channels in Serbia have the audience share in the range of 8-9 percent. During the last eight years in Serbia, the number of cable TV users has increased from 17% in 2003 to 42% in 2011. More than one million households has access to cable TV. At the same time, the number of users of digital services has been on the increase: IPTV, Digital Cable, DTH and DTT have a user base of around ten percent, says the executive director of the ratings agency AGB Nielsen, Darko Brocic. Best-rated TV channels are RTS, Pink and Prva. Apart from national broadcasters, the list of best-rated channels includes RTV Studio B, Channel 1 of Radio-Television Vojvodina and TV Ultra.
(Danas, Blic, 06.10.2011, Danas - Biznis, NUNS, 10.10.2011)

Regardless of the fact that 1.3 million households in Serbia has access to a large number of channels, the stations with national frequencies still occupy 75% of viewers' time. At the level of the city of Belgrade, cable TV has the largest percentage. IPTV by Telecom Serbia has 110,000 users who can choose among 152 channels in total, out of which 46 channels are domestic.
(Danas - Biznis, 10.10.2011)

Among the eight daily newspapers whose distribution is monitored by the auditing agency ABC Serbia, Vecernje Novosti, Blic and Press suffered a drop in distribution amounting to around 4, 9 and 5 percent, respectively. Newspaper Pravda has lost the largest number of readers and its circulation is now reduced by 30 percent. The circulation of Politika has dropped by 5 percent. The economic crisis, which has reduced the standard of living, has undoubtedly affected the sales of newspapers despite the fact that their price is by far the lowest in the region.
(Vecernje Novosti, 07.10.2011)

Many citizens of Serbia suffer bad reception of national TV channels. In Pirot, TV Happy is completely unavailable. Inhabitants of Babusnica, Dimitrovgrad and Bela Palanka have access to only three out of six national TV channels: RTS, Pink and B92. In Subotica, all channels are available but their quality is completely unacceptable. Aside from TV Happy, the worst signal in the territory of Serbia belongs to TV Avala. The Republic Agency for Electronic Communication (RATEL) says that it can take measures only if someone files a complaint.
(Blic, NUNS, 10.10.2011)

Children's cable TV channel – TV Ultra – is the best-rated among all cable channels: it has 270,000 viewers at the monthly level, which proves that children's programme aired by national TV stations is very poor.
(Danas - Biznis, NUNS, 10.10.2011)

Media transfers

Tanja Vojtehovski has decided to resign from TV Pink and launch her own agency, "Vojtehovski Communications". The agency will offer high-level PR services to clients in the region – from Slovenia to Croatia to Serbia.
(Blic, 29.09.2011)

Anniversaries

Weekly magazine Pobeda has published its 3000th issue. The first issue of the magazine appeared on newsstands on 16 November 1944.
(Pravda, 30.09.2011, Politika, 03.10.2011, Vecernje Novosti, 05.10.2011)

On the occasion of 20th anniversary of the launch of the programme Utisak Nedelje, its author, Olja Beckovic, offered an overview of the subjects of her programme and resignedly concluded that all the pressing issues in our society had remained unsolved – writes Branislava Dzunov.
(Blic, 02.10.2011)

The magazine Enterijer (Interior), one of the most reputable domestic magazines in the field of architecture and culture of living, has celebrated 10 years of existence. At the same time, a new magazine – ECOlife – was presented to the public. ECOlife is the first Serbian magazine dedicated to green lifestyle and will be available on newsstands after 7 October 2011.
(MC, 05.10.2011)

Born in Italy, raised in Slovenian-speaking environment, schooled in Russian and German languages, Jurij Gustincic achieved his fame by describing the most influential English-speaking individuals – in Serbian language. Jurij Gustincic is one of the rare journalistic legends from former Yugoslavia who is still active. He is remembered as one of Politika's best correspondents from New York and London. Today he works as a commentator for Mladina from Slovenia and its TV. Honouring his 90th birthday and his 70 years in journalism, RTV Slovenia has recently produced and broadcast a documentary film entitled "The Century of Jurij Gustincic".
(Politika, 05.10.2011, Politika, 06.10.2011, Danas, NUNS, 10.10.2011)

In Memoriam

Stevan Sevic, a longtime journalist and editor in Politika company, died in Belgrade after a long and serious illness.
(Politika, NUNS, UNS, 11.10.2011)