Commenting on Thursday’s attack on an N1 crew near the so-called Caciland, N1 executive producer Adam Santovac described the incident as “a mirror reflection of this government’s media policy.” “I don’t believe anyone picked up the phone and explicitly ordered ‘go attack that crew,’ but the people who hang around there do what they think will please their party,” Santovac told the N1 morning show New Day.
Caciland is a colloquial name for a fenced-off regime-supporter encampment located outside the Serbian Parliament and Presidency buildings and in Pioneers’ Park in central Belgrade. It was erected in early March 2025.
World Television Day has arrived, yet there is little reason for celebration. N1 marked the day with yet another assault on its journalists – this time a reporter and cameraman were attacked and their equipment destroyed just outside Caciland. The incident is seen as a serious escalation in the years-long campaign of various forms of pressure against our television station, which, along with other United Group outlets, has also spent months in uncertainty due to management changes at the parent company.
“Still, I’ll try to find something positive and say that we are proud of our resilience in the face of constant verbal and non-verbal attacks, threats, and challenges of all kinds… We are proud that we keep producing meaningful programming, making it possible for television in the 21st-century to still have a purpose in this kind of Serbia. But we are extremely worried about incidents like yesterday’s. We keep oscillating between pride and anxiety – you never feel truly safe; there is always this underlying unease,” said the N1 executive producer.
He praised his colleagues for remaining composed despite being visibly shaken by Thursday’s incident.
“It was a stark illustration of the paradox in which Serbian media operate today. It is obvious that there are no procedures, even if the procedure is supposedly that no on-site investigation takes place, they should at least stick to that. But instead first they say there will be an investigation, then there won’t be one – it shows we don’t even have the most basic protocols for responding when a media crew is attacked,” Santovac said.
He describes the incident as “a mirror reflection of this government’s media policy.”
“You see a journalist and a cameraman literally ‘on their knees’. A distressed reporter who went out to cover a story but was prevented from doing that and ended up becoming the story against her will. A cameraman whose primary tool – the camera without which we cannot tell any story – lies smashed on the ground. That image sums up how journalists and media crews live and work at present day,” Santovac said, emphasizing that it is World Television Day.
He also recalled two recent statements by the Serbian president.
“One was a November 8 Instagram post in which he thanked the young people in Pioneeers’ Park, calling them the symbol of Serbia’s freedom, so apparently that’s freedom, while what we do is not. He said they were full of love, faith, and hope – not hatred… The second claim was that ‘they don’t attack anyone.’ Yet there were attacks even on people who happened to be passing by, creating total confusion about which ‘side’ the victims were supposedly on. It speaks volumes about the absurdity of the atmosphere unfolding right in front of the National Parliament – the country’s legislative body that is supposed to symbolize the rule of law. You’d think at least in that area there would be some laws and some order.”
Santovac believes police could and should have been present preventively to maintain peace.
“In the end it all falls on us to provide some kind of protection for ourselves. In the past we have hired security for certain rallies we thought were high-risk, but we have now reached the point where we have to consider private security just to film a routine report in the city center,” he said.
He believes that is a “consequence of this government’s actions.”
“I don’t believe anyone picked up the phone and explicitly ordered ‘go attack that crew,’ but the people who hang around there do what they think will please their boss or their party. From the speeches they hear and the signals they pick up at closed-door meetings, they have obviously concluded this is the ‘right thing’ to do – that it will help them climb the ranks, curry favor, and that they won’t face any punishment,” Santovac said.
Source: N1
