June 13th, 1999

Serbian media coverage

Tina, westminster.ac.uk

    Q: The Serbian media coverage has been subjected to a lot of critisicm. What do they have to say in their defence, and where can these answers be found? (Web sites, or other sources.)
I would appreciate an answer.

    There's no such thing like "Serbian media". There's a very distinct line between the state-owned and state-ruled media on one side, and the few independent media which are still able to broadcast and publish are the other side.

    The defence of the state media is, from the few words they said about it, that they are trying to rectify the image of Serbia which was demonized in Western media for years, but those media are "technically better equipped and more unscrupulous in lies" (famous quote by M. Komrakov, editor-in-chief of RTS state television). Other than that, they feel no need to defend themselves - they seem to have the feeling they're doing the right thing from day one. They're actually just a weapon of the regime, which, unfortunately, included the people who were bombed in the RTS building.

    As for the other media, we think they are doing their best, given the circumstances - the notorious media law has financially ruined the most prominent independent newspapers; most of the local radio and TV stations have received orders to rebroadcast the official news from Belgrade (the last one was Radio Pancevo, couple of days ago) or have been denied the right to their frequencies on the air. The investigation of the murder of Slavko Curuvija (publisher of two independent dailies) has gone nowhere, so far. Some of these media still have their websites running, and you can get to the links to them on our news page.

    For anything near the truth, one must read as many sources as possible - see the other links there - and trust noone, not even us. We can't check everything.