Budget funds intended for media project co-financing have been “seriously plundered” for years, with the largest portion being approved to those who violate the Journalists’ Code of Ethics and numerous laws, Veran Matic, Chairman of the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) Managing Board, said on Monday.
He assessed that project co-financing process has, therefore, been “rendered meaningless, as it has become a mechanism for co-financing the lies disseminated in tabloids.”
“It is therefore essential to expose the abuses that are being committed by those who implement this process, and to try and do everything possible to ensure that funds go towards their legally intended purposes, in other words, to make visible everything that has been done non-transparently in the past period,” Matic told a conference titled “Exchange of Experiences and Training for Participation in Project Evaluation Committees in the Process of Project Co-Financing for Media Content.”
The Ambassador of the Netherlands to Serbia, Martijn Elgersma, highlighted at the opening of the event that it is essential for Europe to see peace, stability, and progress in the Western Balkans region.
“We want to see democratic societies and stability in this region. In this process of democratizing society and strengthening democracy, the foundation consists of human rights, and within that framework, we cannot emphasize enough the importance of media freedom and the existence of a pluralistic media landscape. The first sign of a decline in democracy in certain societies is the impediment to media operations and the circumstances under which journalists perform their jobs,” ANEM quoted the ambassador as saying.
Source: N1
