PRISTINA, 29.01.2018 – The Association of Journalists of Kosovo analysed thoroughly the concept document of internal ministry related to prevention and fight against cyber crimes.

The Association of Journalists of Kosovo (AJK) considers that this form of media coverage within the Cybercrime Law is wrong because cybercrime and fake news have nothing in common. Any attempt to criminalize defamation is considered an attempt to limit freedom of information.

Moreover, this initiative was made without notice or public consultation, although the online discussion platform was opened on December 22, 2017 through January 18, 2018 in the framework of the cyber crime law – and as a result many media stakeholders were not aware of this proposal.

AJK understands that this phenomenon is a concern but it wants to inform the sponsors and the relevant institutions that media freedom, although very fragile, cannot be regulated without a full discussion and inclusion of all relevant parties.

Any involvement of fake news, libel or any journalistic phenomenon in this law is likely to cause us some backward steps.

AJK urges that this initiative be stopped and reopen the discussion and expanded with all relevant stakeholders, including AJK and civil society.

BELGRADE, 26.01.2018. – The Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia and the Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina strongly condemn the dirty, continuous campaign that the pro-media media conducts against Tamara Skrozza, journalist of Vreme weekly and a member of the Press Council Complaints Committee and other journalists and the media.

It is especially indicative that attacks on “unsuitable” journalists and almost open calls for lynching escalated immediately after the international delegation, composed of the representatives of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), the International Press Institute (IPI) and the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) that visited Belgrade to establish the real state of media freedom and safety of journalists.
NUNS and NDNV believe that the schizophrenic reaction against journalists was due to findings of an international mission that the state of media freedom in Serbia is very bad. Particularly worrying is the fact that attacks were frequent despite Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s promise to members of the international mission “to defend the freedom of the media without conditions”.

At the end of the visit to Belgrade, Mogens Blicher Bjerregård , president of EFJ, stated that there are many pressures and threats against journalists in Serbia, and that President Vucic must support the freedom of the media before it is too late.

At pro-government tabloid television with national frequency, TV PINK, Dragan Vucicevic, the editor-in-chief of the pro-government tabloid Informer, yesterday accused the journalist Tamara Skrozza and the Vreme weekly of creating an atmosphere of chaos before the upcoming Belgrade Assembly elections just so they could claim election theft after, and that they work in the interest of Miroslav Miskovic, a businessman. The use of Skrozza’s half sentences stated in a satirical show taken out of context, in TV Pink recognizable professional manner, targeted a respected journalist as an archenemy of Aleksander Vucic.

In the same TV programme, Vucicevic stated a lie that the editor-in-chief of the Beta agency, Dragan Janjic, openly accused Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic of murdering Oliver Ivanovic, local Kosovo politician of Serbian nationality shot on 16.01.2017 in Kosovska Mitrovica. We remind the public that such false accusations were the reason for the still on-going 9 days long horrendous campaign against Dragan Janjić on social networks calling for his expulsion from Serbia and murder.

Predrag Sarapa and Vucicevic, the hosts of the TV PINK show, insulted the president of the NUNS, Slavisa Lekic, and disparaged the daily newspaper Danas calling it a “CIA daily”. Vucicevic accused CRTA and other non-governmental organizations of being mercenaries of the US Embassy, USAID, and the US businessmen Rockefeller and Soros and, using the most primitive rhetoric mocked the opposition party leaders and other prominent public figures, known for their critical views about the current government.

For two days on the Informer website and other far right websites, a real persecution is taking place against Una Hajdari, journalist from Kosovo and an associate of the international organization Reporters Without Borders, because of her humorous tweet from the President of Serbia press conference during his visit to northern Kosovo. Hajdari’s photograph was published and she was called a ‘hater of all that’s Serbian and Vucic’. As soon as this enflaming article was published, Hajdari received insults and serious threats through social networks.

KOLAŠIN, 26.01.2018 – These days a lot has been said about the poor position of journalists in Montenegro. Correspondents, besides those problem that they share with their colleagues from newsrooms, have a few more. Without an office, support of colleagues “when things go wrong”, without working hours, the experience of a teamwork, mostly without timely compliments and criticism from the superiors, without additional education…

“Why would anyone, if he/she doesn’t have to, be a journalist in Kolašin?” asked my friend recently. He is neither the first nor the last one interested in whether I could choose a “better, less disapproving” and “more paid” profession. I do not know if I could do anything else, but, I swear, I chose to be a journalist and “I did not lift a finger” to try to report from a bigger town.

With a few of those who chose the same or did not have any other option, I marked unofficially Day of Journalist in Kolašin. We ignored successfully personal differences and the differences of newsrooms we work for, but it remains unclear whether in those half an hour of socializing we thought really about each other, and about ourselves, as “true” journalists. Journalists working in small towns have never successfully overcome inferiority complex. Accordingly that is how, compliments to exceptions, correspondents are treated as well in their newsrooms. Example that illustrates this is the situation which happened a few years ago when one of “media wolves” downgraded other “giving” him “the workplace of the correspondent from Šavnik”. Even when this is not the case, no matter how important local topics we dealt with, at one point we are defeated by the fact that “everything important happens in Podgorica” or “downhearted” by a small number of story views, in which we invested many days, a lot of effort and because of which we gained everlasting enemies in our closest environment. Eventually, we begin to torture ourselves with “awareness” that “great” stories are accidental in provinces, and that we are important to our newsroom as much as we have space on the front page.

These days a lot has been said about the poor position of journalists in Montenegro. Correspondents, besides those problem that they share with their colleagues from newsrooms, have a few more. Without an office, support of colleagues “when things go wrong”, without working hours, the experience of a teamwork, mostly without timely compliments and criticism from the superiors, without additional education… In addition, the effort to find, in any aspect dying environment, which has less inhabitants than a suburb of the capital, a topic every day. Reporting from a small place entails a lot of issues that journalists from big cities do not endure; among other, it means meeting at least once a day in the street, in a café, in someone’s house … a person that you mentioned in the article the previous day, a person that you criticized, whose misuses you uncovered…

It means, in places with several thousand inhabitants, that you will often write about a cousin, a friend of a friend, godfather’s brother, your neighbor, someone than has helped you once or who hurt you. Being a correspondent from a small town means that instead of writing responses or denials, those who do not like your writing will “feel free” to stop you on the street and tell you their objections, without choosing words. It means, of course, that you will endure for a long time consequences, hostility and revenge of everyone you have made angry. After years of such writing, there is only a small number of those you warmly greet, and only a small number of those who are able to separate personal and professional issues. It’s hard and uncomfortable, in a place in which by the rule one should live “not offending anyone”, and in which every criticism is whispered and under the code ”You did not hear it from me”, to sign the truth with name and surname. At the top of it, if you receive a salary lower than the average at the state level, then, really, why would do that if you are not forced or you cannot do anything else?

Here is the answer to a friend who asked that question quoted at the beginning, but also a reminder to myself and fellow correspondents from this less fortunate part of Montenegro. A good or bad journalist one can be in a big city and in Šavnik, Andrijevica, Plav, Kolašin…A bad and good person, too. Journalists’ Code, can be consistently respected or ignored anywhere. “Great” and “small” journalistic stories are measured, in addition to number of readers, by changes for the better that followed them and with how much responsibility they are written. Yes, fellow correspondents, we are “real” and “great” journalists, as much as we successfully search for the truth, even when we write about an open pit in neighborhood of our town.