BELGRADE, 28.09.2018. – The purpose of the project-based co-financing system is to provide citizens with the missing media content and expand the right to freedom of expression.
The ambiguity of existing legal solutions and, in quite a few cases, deliberate abuse of the project-based co-financing of media content have turned the entire project-based co-financing mechanism from protection of public interest in the area of information into its complete opposite, into support to individual or group interests, contrary to the main goal – providing more quality and diverse information to citizens.
Faced with shrinking media pluralism, but also with the obligation that it is the citizens’ constitutional right to be informed in a timely and objective manner, as well as that all media and journalists should be given an equal position, we propose a number of measures, recommendations and activities to ensure that the project-based co-financing of media content system really does serve public interest, specifically through increasing the transparency and accessibility of data on the volume and distribution of state money; more effective control of the money spent, and through the evaluation of achievements; adequate sanctions for the misuse of funds and prevention of corruption; and further enhancement of content pluralism. For this mechanism to serve its purpose, the Public Information and Media Act and the accompanying Rulebook on co-financing projects for achieving public interest in the area of public information need to be amended.
- Identifying citizens’ specific needs by defining public interest and determining the purpose of competitions.
Most competitions at the local level are formulated in such a way that the appropriate provisions of the Public Information and Media Act and the Rulebook are copied, without any real awareness of which segment of public interest should be supported first, depending on the specific needs of the population in a given local environment.
Analyses of what missing media content of public interest is needed, which contributes to raising the quality of public debate on all relevant social issues, are very rare.
Recommendation: Prescribing public governing bodies the obligation of conducting periodic analyses of the media content needed, which will also include an economic analysis of the cost of producing such content, at the national, provincial and local self-government levels, with continuous participation of the citizens.
- Composition and manner of operation of competition commissions.
The White Book on Project Co-financing[1] and The Legal Analysis of Project-Based Co-financing[2] reports have mapped numerous problems pertaining to the work of expert commissions, and the process of deciding on the allocation of funds.
Some problems stem from the ambiguity of regulations. The issue is mostly the definition of the term “media expert,” who can participate in the work of expert commissions. There is also no ban on the participation of a certain category of individuals who are in a conflict or interest or are public officials, in the work of expert commissions.
The fundamental rules of operation of an expert commission need to be regulated, and a ban should be placed on revising the commission’s decisions on the allocation of funds by public governing bodies.
RECOMMENDATION: Improvement of expert commissions’ work and reduction of arbitrariness in the work of said commissions through defining the term “media expert,” prescribing rules of an expert commission’s work, placing a ban on revising an expert commission’s proposal by public governing bodies, and specifying “conflict of interest.”
- Competition realization responsibilities.
This is one of the most problematic issues, because it goes beyond the matter of project co-financing (as it touches on the question of conduct supervision in line with the Public Information and Media Act in general), and partly involves other laws outside the media field. The identified problematic points of this process, where responsibility for realization is concerned, pertain primarily to:
- surveillance of the legality of conduct of local self-government units in the implementation of provisions on competition-based co-financing;
- control of state aid in the area of project-based co-financing;
- inadequate sanction system.
RECOMMENDATION: Improvement of control mechanisms through cooperation between the competent bodies, and through prescribing the jurisdiction of the Administrative Inspectorate in the project co-financing process, but also prescribing a larger number of sanctions for violations of the law and a higher fine in misdemeanor cases.
- Determining the total amount of funds allocated in a competition.
The project-based co-financing practice of the Republic, Province and local self-government units does not define criteria for the amounts to be allocated in competitions. The “cost principle” as a result of prior economic analysis is not applied, thus the sums allocated range from several hundred or several tens of thousands of dinars to tens of millions.
RECOMMENDATION: Determining maximum and minimum amounts allocated in competitions, in line with the economic analysis and with the application of the “cost principle,” which would aim to tie as much as possible the funds granted by public governing bodies to the real costs the media have in the production of media content of public interest.
- Process transparency and evaluating fulfillment of purpose of project-based co-financing
The practice of implementation of project-based co-financing so far has shown that the transparency of the entire process is highly questionable – from the pre-competition phase, when themes of public interest should be defined, through the competition phase, i.e. the realization of the competition itself, to the post-competition phase, i.e. informing the public about whether the purpose of the supported projects has been fulfilled. Namely, only a handful of local self-government units carry out the pre-competition phase. In the competition phase, not all bodies meet the prescribed obligation of publicizing the majority of documents important for this process. It is a frequent occurrence that some local self-government units do not publicize any documentation at all or do so in an inadequate way. The post-competition phase or the phase of evaluating projects through the submission of narrative and financial statements is absolutely non-transparent, because the statements are not available to the public. On the other hand, that mechanism has not sufficiently helped to adequately evaluate the achievement of goals of public interest through the financing of certain media content. That is why the system needs to be supplemented with further explanation of fulfillment of the internal analysis obligations, but also by introducing the external analysis category, which will help to review as well as possible the achievement of goals of public interest in the area of public information.
RECOMMENDATION: Improving the transparency of the project-based co-financing process through public hearings, publicizing all documents related to competition procedures and the publication of narrative and financial statements. Analysis of achieved goals of public interest needs to be introduced through further explanation of the rules of internal and external evaluation.
- Informing minority communities and other vulnerable groups.
Project-based co-financing of media content of public interest has not had much effect so far where providing information to minority communities and other vulnerable groups (e.g. persons with disabilities) is concerned, given that it is a special measure of affirmative action for the purpose of exercising the human rights of minority communities and other endangered groups. As this support through “general competitions” has not turned out to be the right solution, it makes sense to provide “special guarantees” for realizing that segment of public interest in the field of public information, as affirmative action measures that do not require legal amendments.
RECOMMENDATION: Define measures of “affirmative action” toward media content of public interest aimed at minority communities and other vulnerable groups, i.e. separate general competitions from those pertaining to media content meant for national minorities, i.e. for providing information to persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups.
The problems in project-based co-financing do not necessarily mean that the system established by media regulations is bad and that this method of distributing funds should be completely abandoned. In other words, the system requires certain amendments to regulations, while on the other hand it also calls for the will for proper implementation, i.e. implementation in line with the defined media policy objectives.
[1] http://nuns.rs/reforma-javnog-informisanja/projektno-finansiranje-medija/27964/publikacija-bela-knjiga-konkursnog-sufinansiranja-javnog-interesa-u-sferi-javnog-informisanja.html