Panel: Draft Law on Public Information and Media Allows State Ownership of the Media, Makes Press Council’s Role Worthless

Photo: Beta/Milos Miskov

Some of the most controversial provisions of the Draft Law on Public Information and Media, on which a public discussion is ongoing, related to allowing state ownership of the media and making the Press Council's role pointless, it was said in Belgrade on Oct. 3 at a panel titled “What Does the New Media Law Bring?”

A member of the Working Group for drafting the law, attorney Veljko Milic, said that the provision allowing state ownership of the media had been added by the Information Ministry, under which the government could establish legal entities that could be media owners. Milic explained that thereby, the government could appoint people to manage media outlets and thorough them “have full control,” noting that the government only wanted to legalize what it had been already doing in certain media outlets.

Press Council Secretary General Gordana Novakovic said that the Council was included in the Draft Law, but in a way which made worthless the provision stipulating that the state should not allocate funds to the media outlets violating Serbian Journalists’ Code of Ethics. She explained that in terms of allocation of funds, the Draft Law envisages that the Council’s opinion would be taken into account only for media outlets which recognized the Council, while the others could continue to violate the Code.

“It is all a farce. The Council is included in the Draft Law, but what can we do,” Novakovic asked. She added that media outlets which accepted the self-regulation system would be punished, while the others would be able to violate journalism ethics and standards and that would be in accordance with the law. Novakovic further said that after the opening of the public debate on the document, they had talked with Serbian Government representatives, who, she said, promised that this provision would be changed.

European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) President Maja Sever, who addressed the panel via video link, said that the document was not in compliance with the European media strategy as claimed by the Serbian Government representatives. According to Sever, populist leaders would often accept European media regulations, but they would remain only “a dead letter.”