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30. 04. 2012

THIRTY-FIRST MONITORING REPORT

The results of the legal monitoring of the Serbian media scene in March 2012, contained in the Thirty-first Monitoring Report, indicate the following:

The entire media sector, as well as the society as a whole, was marked with the election campaigns of political parties and coalitions, which began even prior to March 13, when elections at all levels were called for May 6, 2012.

Calling of the elections resulted in increased pressure on the media, as evident from several cases treated in the part of the Report relating to the freedom of expression. These pressures, as well as physical attacks on journalists and their crews, were most often caused by dissatisfaction of the local political power with critical reporting of certain media and journalists on their work. Discrimination against those journalists and the media, as well as accusations of local authorities and influential politicians that owners of some local media, as their counter-candidates in local elections, instrumentalize newsrooms in the interest of their political promotion, promotion of their parties, or parties that they are close to, affected very adversely the situation in this area and the exercise of right of the public to be informed on matters of public importance. In this part of the Report, the authors analyze the court proceeding against a journalist for alleged commission of the criminal offense - unlawful public commenting on legal proceedings.

In the part of the Report relating to the implementation of existing regulations there was analyzed the implementation of the Broadcasting Law. The authors deals with the RBA General Binding Instruction on broadcasters' conduct during the election campaign - namely, with the extent to which the Instruction have assisted or obstructed journalists and media in doing their job during the pre-election campaign, as well as the importance of the publication of the classification method of programming genres that RRA is applying. In addition, starting from available information about changes in electronic media ownership structure in the last three years, the authors analyze the application of the Law in this area, pointing to the fact that these changes may lead to a lack of transparency of media ownership and possible illegal media concentration, as well as to the reasons why these issues are still not adequately regulated by the law.

In this period, no new legislation relevant to the media was adopted.

The work of competent authorities in this period was also the subject of legal monitoring. While the RBA was conducting intensive monitoring of broadcasters' work in the pre-election campaign and dealt with numerous complaints regarding the program content mainly filed by political parties participating in the elections, RATEL has brought, for the first time, two "must carry" decisions for the leading cable operator, whereas, in a joint action with other relevant authorities, this regulatory body has finally prevented further broadcasting of radio program of one of the most persistent illegal broadcasters. In this part of the Report, the authors deal with the work of the Press Council, the report of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection on the implementation of these two laws, decisions of the collective organizations OFPS and PI concerning the fees charged to some categories of users of objects of their protection, as well as with the work of the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society, in terms of implementation of the Media Strategy and regarding Government decision to grant interest-free loan to the news agency "Tanjug", for reporting on the election campaign and election day May 6.

The authors of the Report have also dealt with the developments in the digitalization process. According to them, March 2012 was a significant month for the digitalization of television in Serbia, because the Initial network for testing of the digital TV signals broadcasting from 15 locations was put into operation and a "simulcast" began as the first phase of digitalization in the country.

In the area of privatization of the media, however, there has been no progress recorded. Analyzing the situation in this area, the authors, using an example of yet another termination of the privatization contract, point to a serious problem of a lack of systematic mechanism for protection of local public media, their newsrooms and editorial policies from local power, which is especially visible in the election campaign, the mechanism which these same media unfortunately do not understand or do not want to understand due to their immediate needs and interests.

In the Conclusion of the Report there is authors' assessment of the media situation in Serbia during this period.

The Thirty-first Monitoring Report was completed by the professional team of the law office "Zivkovic&Samardzic", in cooperation with ANEM. You can download the Report here, in whole or in part, by clicking on the selected section below.