Analysts: Pro-regime Media Receiving Millions in Project Financing Competitions

(BETAPHOTO/Ana Slovic/)

Media analysts say that “openly pro-regime outlets” are receiving millions in competitions for project financing of the public interest content whereby the media laws are being “devaluated.”

Cenzolovka journalist Denis Kolundzija has told the Vojvodina Research and Analytical Center (VOICE) that the basic idea behind such media contests is to “funnel the money into the [politically] suitable outlets.”

Balkan Investigative and Research Network (BIRN) journalist Slobodan Georgiev has said that the local level competitions are organized with the purpose of accomplishing two goals.

He told VOICE (www.voice,org.rs ) that one goal is to silence all protesting voices as the money is seemingly granted to all, regardless of the amount, while the other and more important is to give the lion’s share of such funds to the outlets controlled by the regime.

“In this way no one speaks up because all have received something, while on the other hand, the fake news media are awarded, or are simply used to launder the money, because they give back a portion of what they received back to the party,” Georgiev said.

He concluded that “such perversely understood financing of the public interest content deprives the operation of the media of their purpose and creates the impression in the public that all media are the same and that there are actually no outlets working in the public interest.”