BELGRADE, 25.10.2019. – The N1 TV Executive Producer Igor Bozic told the Istinomer website in an interview that the attacks on N1 derived from an overall odium against the TV.
Asked about limits to courage and ethic in Serbia’s journalism, Bozic said that “endangering life is maybe a moment when one could rethink, but, fortunately, N1 still isn’t in such situation.”
Commenting on all sorts of attacks on N1 – verbal, threatening letters, accusations coming from the country’s top leadership, ban on reporting from ruling party events, publishing of the internal e-mail correspondence and TV Director’s personal data, and finally 500 leaflets reading “Republic of Serbia – Goodbye; N1 – Welcome to Luxembourg” – thrown into the yard of the building housing N1 – Bozic said all that was the consequence “of what some people hear and watch on mainstream media, TV channels with national frequency and what they are told by some representatives of the authorities.”
“My impression is that everyone took the gloves off. We now have direct insults… Goran Vesic, Deputy Mayor, described Jugoslav Cosic (the N1 Programme Director) a fascist mercenary, adding it is worse than being a fascist. Vesic was not happy with our report on the incident with his burned book,” Bozic said.
Bozic added that N1 owners had supported the freedom of speech and media since the beginning. “Their aim has always been to have a respectable media, a positive business brand worth being proud of. I think that all of us who work with N1 managed to achieve that.”
He added such brutal offences were a daily thing.
“Before it was enough to brand N1 as an American TV, but now it becomes necessary to humiliate all people who work here additionally.”
Bozic said that if “President Aleksandar Vucic is designing a media strategy,” he was cautious so that the attacks on N1 could not be linked to him directly.
“They (the attacks) derive from an overall hostility against us. He (Vucic) does not tell them to do that since he knows it wouldn’t look good in the international circles. Still, I’m convinced that there is a mechanism because you have Vucic’s sentences that are literally copied by his analysts and then spread arccos all media with national frequency. That is not a coincidence,” Bozic said.
He added that N1 owners had supported the freedom of speech and media since the beginning.
“Their aim has always been to have a respectable media, a positive business brand worth being proud of. I think that all of us who work with N1 managed to achieve that,” Bozic said.
He added he was surprised with the level of support N1 received from the colleagues who gathered in large number to protest against attacks on N1. “We did not ask for support, and nevertheless we got it,” Bozic said.
