The importance of free media in a society that aspires to be free, democratic, and overall “healthy” is enormous. Media, in all of its shapes and forms, is responsible for keeping the public informed about everything that is happening in the world, and most importantly behind the scenes. If there is no one to keep the people in power in check, they are allowed to do whatever they want, and usually what they want is nowhere near what is best for the people. Media must be out of the reach of those who will use it to gain more power because it certainly is a powerful resource that can help a person, or a group of people, to partially or completely control certain societies. We tend to trust at least some media sources, and those we do trust can obtain control over how we think. That is why it is very important for the very media to understand the weight it has in this society, but also for everyone else to understand that even once media is free and liberated from the influence of those in power, it can still be biased and therefore not completely objective.
The public service broadcasting in Serbia is called RTS, short for Radio-televizijaSrbije (Radio Television of Serbia). It is funded partially from the government’s budget, and partially from the people who pay a tax through electricity bill. This was decided because 100% of people own electricity meter, that is all of us pay for electricity and the tax for the public service together. This means that people who do not own a tv are also obligated to pay, and people who own multiple houses with electricity are obligated to pay multiple times. In theory, this, of course, can be avoided, in practice, it is close to impossible.
RTS used to be a go-to television channel for every intellectual in the country. It offered a variety of educational programs as well as a very objective picture of the political situation in Serbia. There were certain governments that demanded complete control over media, RTS included. Today RTS has gone the dark path again, it serves as one of the guardians for the current president and his government, although it is not as obvious as some other tv stations. It is constantly being accused by both the ruling party and the opposition to be on the side of the other one, but the truth is if they are not standing up to the tyrant they are siding up with it. While it is not the worst example of how unfair media is in Serbia, RTS is a very good example of how public service broadcasting can be controlled by the government because if the two sides are working against each other, they have a fifty-fifty chance of winning the battle. It is definitely not free, and even the, once, good sides of this station, such as culture-related program have become bad because they have been playing the same shows for years now. There is nothing new, useful, or entertaining to hear at RTS anymore.
Other media sources in Serbia, some of them, more influential than RTS, are mostly on the same path. The biggest and most obvious ruling party supporters are tv Pink and two newspapers: Informer and Kurir. Tv Pink is a very good weapon for sharing the ideas of the current government with people who are generally very easy to convince into believing pretty much anything. It started off as a channel meant for rom-coms, music competitions, and children’s programs but it ended up as one of the government’s strongest players. In between all the reality program that is being played at this television, time is usually consumed by either praising the ruling party or bringing down the opposition is some way. Pink has been proclaimed as the most powerful media in the country because of the influence it has over its viewers. The secret to its success is probably in one way or the other related to the fact that this tv station managed to remain close to all of the governments since Milošević. The connection of the owner of Tv Pink – ŽeljkoMitrović and those in power is so strong that his son, after killing a 17-year-old girl in an accident and fleeing the crime scene got 12 months of house arrest. This sentence was shortened afterward to 11 months. The benefits of being on the side of the government are very clear in this case. A lot of it can be understood by just simply tracking down the owners of the media and their relation to the government. Dragan J. Vučićević, the owner of daily newspaper Informer, has applied the same tactic and has served as a guard for this government and the ones that came before.
The most worrying media in Serbia have to be tv Prva and tv B92. The first one started off as Serbian FOX, basically playing interesting movies, shows, and overall entertaining programs for the majority of the day. Later it was bought by SrđanMilovanović and it was turned into Pink 2.0, not so obviously corrupted but still visible to the trained eye. B92 was one of the most trusted tv stations for the majority of its existence, it was even one of the few media sources behind the protests against one of Yugoslavia’s biggest tyrants – Milošević. In recent years it was for a while owned by the opposition and it carried the name O2, after which it was bought by the same man who owns tv Prva and the name went back to B92. What is so dangerous about this is that the approach B92 has did not change but the content has slightly shifted in the advantage of the ruling party. The majority of the people does not know that it has been owned by the brother of a highly positioned official of the Progressive Party (ruling party), and they still trust it how they did 10 years ago when its journalists were so deep in the government’s and mafia’s business that they would get some very serious death threats. Some of the journalists that sadly had to go through this are BrankicaStanković and Tanja Janković whose fights against criminals are not completely finished yet after almost a decade of fighting them.
There are a lot of regulations in Serbia that are supposed to prohibit these people from making damage. Unfortunately, the bad news is that these regulations can be very easily circumvented with the right connections. Everything that should be illegal is illegal. The Constitution does not allow censorship and grants freedom of speech and press, intolerance in media is against the law, not to mention that slander and death threats are also prohibited. REM, shorten for Regulatornotelo za eletronskemedije (Regulatory body for electronic media), is in charge of supervising the work of all electronic media in the country. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding REM. They are being called out for obviously taking the president’s side and spreading fake news and presenting them as facts. In their official report, REM concluded that somehow the opposition is mentioned more in the media than the ruling party. When asked to explain this phenomenon, one of the members of REM, Olivera Zekić, successfully avoided answering the question but she did mention that: “When you get the official report of REM, you will hold it as a bible”. This sums up REMs relationship with their own obligations and duties, but also with the people of Serbia. The opposition has even demanded a change of all nine members of REM, some of them did end up being changed but it did not mean much considering the members are being chosen by the National Assembly which is dominated by SNS, and other members of the ruling coalition.
Media in Serbia is not fair, open, nor free. Unfortunately, it has served as a propaganda machine for years, but in my lifetime, it has never been as obvious as now. The leaders of the country have never had this much control over the media. Almost all of the media sources are under the rule of the leading coalition, with the exception of a few newspapers that are, of course, not read nearly as much as the pro-government ones, and N1 tv, which is under control of CNN. The country has fallen into a neverending circle, where if media stands up against the government and mafia, but does not have suitable protection, the journalists can end up beaten up in the middle of the street, with bombs thrown at their homes and cars, fighting for their lives in general. Some end up losing this fight, like Slavko Ćuruvija whose life ended with no less than 17 bullets being shot at him. To this day when journalists are threatened and someone wants to make sure they know what faith awaits them, they are being compared to Ćuruvija. For as long as this is what Serbia has to deal with this on a daily basis, not just the media, but the country itself will not be fair, open and free.
Irina Irić, studentkinja druge godine na AUBG, Blagojevgrad
