N1 has received confirmation that Telekom Serbia CEO Vladimir Lucic attended the presentation of an investigative journalism award to the former head of N1’s Editorial Board Brent Sadler who has been criticizing N1 in interviews to pro-government media.
Sadler, who has been refusing comment when asked multiple times if he is being considered to take over United Group’s media sector, received the award from the US Transatlantic Leadership Network at a ceremony in Washington DC 2 weeks ago with Lucic in the audience. He was given the award as a former CNN reporter and former head of the N1 editorial board. He did not speak about his work in investigative journalism at the ceremony, focusing on criticism of N1 as he has in recent weeks.
He repeated the claims he initially made in an interview to the Croatian weekly Nacional that N1’s editorial policy was influenced by its owners. He added that viewers had been misled into thinking they are watching an independent media outlet. According to Sadler, the public is confused and think they are watching CNN. He said that he left N1 because, in his view, the station was not following their editorial guidelines.
The audience at the award ceremony included the Nacional editor-in-chief who is a member of the Transatlantic Leadership Network’s Media Freedom Initiative, Serbia’s Ambassador to the USA Dragan Sutanovac, as well as the man sitting next to him, who bears a striking resemblance to Telekom Srbija director Vladimir Lucic. N1 asked why he was there.
“The Transatlantic Leadership Network’s Media Freedom Initiative closely cooperated with the US Newsmax to make possible a joint Newsmax and Newsmax Balkans event in Washington, to announce the expansion of their network in Europe. That event coincided with our awards ceremony (the two events were held two days apart), so we invited Mr. Lucic,” the Initiative said.
Newsmax Balkans — the only Serbian media outlet that attended the awards ceremony in Washington — that failed to report that Sadler had received the award. The Newsmax piece mentioned only that “this year’s laureates come from the most demanding fields of journalism — national security, foreign policy, and war zones.”
There was no mention of laureate Sadler or Lucic, nor that the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) had also received an award from this organization — but refused to accept it. “BIRN Serbia declined to accept the TLN award, among other reasons due to the controversial role of Brent Sadler on the Serbian media scene,” BIRN told N1.
Asked whether the presence of the Telekom director was in any way connected to Sadler, the Transatlantic Leadership Network said only that the two were not seated at the same table. “We had about 250 guests at our awards ceremony, and during breaks people could move freely,” the Network said.
We also asked them to send us examples of investigative work that led to Sadler receiving an award for investigative journalism.
Sadler was honored for his exceptional and long international career, which included wars in the Middle East as well as many other internationally important topics, where the investigative nature of reporting is evident, the Transatlantic Leadership Network said.
Investigative journalism means independently collecting information of public importance that is hidden from the public or is difficult to access, as well as providing evidence for every presented claim. Sadler gave no evidence to support his allegations that an “unprofessional” N1 was Russian-influenced. He warned of the risk of having media that are incapable of telling the truth and being fair, balanced, responsible and professional. Sadler said that the vacuum will be filled if that space is left open and added that Russia is a player in the region.
Sadler has persistently refuses to answer N1’s questions about his potential role in the management structure of N1’s owner, as well as questions about meetings with the United Group CEO, who has been coordinating with the Telekom CEO to weaken the media in Serbia.
Source: N1
