A large crowd gathered for a show of support to N1 in front of the media outlet’s building on Tuesday evening, pledging to defend its independence.
Staff from other media outlets, local community assembly members, actors, prosecutors and politicians stood with other supporters of the station. The crowd heard speeches from prominent public figures and a letter from football player Nemanja Vidic warning that survival needs free media.
The Students in Blockade informal group called for the show of support as did the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM), Association of Online Mediam, Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS), Independent Society of Journalists of Vojvodina (NDNV), the Slavko Curuvija Foundation and others.
Bikers who have been supporting the student protests for more than a year were also present at the gathering.
N1 news anchor Maja Zezelj read out a letter from the station staff which said: “We live and work in a country which went through dramatic events. Few countries have, in such a short period of time, faced three mass killings of children and adults while not being at war. The Ribnikar, Dubona, Malo Orasje (mass killings), and the collapse of the concrete canopy at Novi Sad Railway Station have overturned everything we once accepted as inevitable in society.
All of us at N1 have shared this fate with you — our audience — feeling at every moment the heaviness and gloom of the circumstances we find ourselves in. Our journalists and camera crews have traveled hundreds of kilometers and spent countless hours covering the dramatic events initiated by students, citizens, and activists.
We do not wish to lament tonight, but it is worth recalling that N1 consistently ranks — in both domestic and international reports — among the media outlets most exposed to physical, verbal, and other forms of attack. These attacks originate from the highest levels of political power and cascade downward to the lowest levels, to the individuals willing to be violent, emboldened by a sense of prior approval.
A few days ago, we marked 27 years since the murder of (newspaper publisher) Slavko Curuvija. International journalists’ organizations warned that the safety of journalists in Serbia remains at a point when another killing is not unthinkable. In March alone, NUNS recorded 30 incidents involving journalists. A year has twelve months — each filled with similar figures — and attacks on journalists are no longer isolated incidents, but a pattern.
After all this, we at N1 are now facing internal changes that were announced as early as February last year by the President, and later reinforced by a recording of a conversation between CEOs — Stan Miller of United Group and Vladimir Lucic of Telekom Serbia. That recording, made public by an international investigative journalism network, reveals the political will of the President of Serbia to influence the media, as well as the readiness of two powerful corporate figures to comply with that will.
This is where things now stand: our news director, Igor Bozic, has been dismissed. In the world from which our new management comes, people are dismissed for a reason—when they make mistakes, neglect their duties, or damage a company’s reputation. So why was a director removed who led a newsroom that built a widely watched program, strengthened public trust, and worked professionally and diligently despite security risks, psychological pressure, and constant threats—under relentless fire from powerful players? What conclusion are we meant to draw from the very first move of the new management?
We wish to inform our colleagues in European and global media that the fate of N1 in Serbia is not merely a personal matter for us. It is an issue that directly affects what remains of professional journalism and media in the entire country.
We also want to draw the attention of European Union institutions, the President of the European Commission, and the Commissioner for Enlargement to the fact that the political and social conditions in this candidate country are such that their future reports may well omit the section on media freedom altogether. It may cease to exist even in the limited form in which it survives today.
N1 is not merely a private company, subject to the owner’s right to dispose of it according to political or other interests. N1 has transcended the boundaries of private ownership and has established itself as a public interest in its own right — through the way it operates, and in the context of a broader collapse of media standards, professionalism, and ethics.
We, the employees of N1, pledge to remain true to ethical standards, to our profession, and to ourselves.
We thank all media associations that organized the protest, and we thank everyone who spoke tonight and who came to stand outside our gates—to give us strength and a sense of purpose to carry on”.
Source: N1
