Serbian media and NGOs launch joint action to stop "media darkness"

Serbian media and NGOs launch joint action to stop
By bne IntelliNews September 29, 2017

More than 300 media outlets and NGOs in Serbia took part in a joint action called ‘stop media darkness’ launched at noon on September 28, publishing black pages in their print editions or putting up plain black homepages on their websites. 

The action is being organised by the Independent Organisation of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS) as a response to the recent closure of local weekly magazine Vranjske, published for more than two decades in the southern town of Vranje. Vukasin Obradovic, the founder and the owner of Vranjske, is also a former president of the NUNS. He and his supporters claim that the closure of Vranjske was the result of long lasting government pressure on the free media.

NUNS said on September 29 that in addition to the hundreds of media outlets and other organisations taking part in the action, 482,000 individuals also joined in by posting black rectangles as their profile pictures on social media platforms. 

“The direct motive for this action is the closing of Vranjske, one of the most important local media in Serbia, because of the constant political pressures to which it couldn’t resist anymore. With this campaign we want to warn the public of the fact that media freedom in our country is ebbing and that all of us together have to fight to preserve it,” reads the press release posted on the website of NUNS.

After 23 years in print, Vranjske’s closure was announced on September 15. The weekly has been facing financial difficulties as the number of paid ads have been going down in the last few years. At the same time, the magazine complained that the local government had misallocated funds designated for the media properly. This led to Vranjske being rejected for one of two proposed projects as well as getting only a modest amount money for the project that was supported, it said. 

Vranjske reported in June that it had sued the local government of Vranje over its decision, claiming that the local government’s criteria for forming the tender commission were unknown (and thus it was not clear if there was a conflict of interest) and that the commission had granted most of the funds to two local media which weren’t registered when the deadline for submission of projects expired.  

A few months later, Obradovic decided to close his magazine, and he started a hunger strike locked in his office on September 19. He said the strike was his attempt to warn the public in Serbia about ‘media darkness’. However, he stopped the strike the following day when he was rushed to hospital because of high blood pressure. During the 24 hours he got support from numerous colleagues and associates as well as from some citizens.

Obradovic is still remembered as a leading voice in the opposition to Slobodan Milosevic, and a loud voice of dissent in Vranje, which was the last town in the country to join the nationwide protest against the former dictator. More recently, he has been highly critical of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), which recently formed the local government in Obradovic. 

However, the situation is not as black and white as it has been presented in the Serbian and international media. The public in Vranje, many of whom know Vranjske and Obradovic personally since Vranje is a small town of barely 70,000 citizens, is divided about the issue.

Local citizens have objected to the high prices charged for ads in Vranjske, which are too high for most small local firms. Even publishing an obituary used to cost about €50, which is a huge expense in a town where a salary of €200 a month is considered good.

There have also been claims that Vranjske used its market position as the only local magazine in the town to blackmail companies into placing ads by running brutally critical articles. 

Even so, the protest is significant because it highlights the government’s inability to deal with criticism, even constructive criticism. Officials still reach for the rhetoric about haters and enemies of the state, used under communism and in the Milosevic era. The most prominent members of the SNS were part of that government for few years — including President Aleksandar Vucic who served as a minister of information.

“This is less a story about Vranjske — maybe it will sound pretentious but it is about all of us, journalists, readers, citizens who have never heard of or taken into their hands our magazine. The one who doesn’t understand this, that one doesn’t have a good will or we do not live in the same country,” Obradovic wrote in his text published on the website of NUNS on September 28.

 
 

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