"This book is an attempt to address obstacles to a democratic development of media systems in the countries of South East Europe by mapping patterns of corrupt relations and practices in media policy development, media ownership and financing, public service broadcasting, and journalism as a profess
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ion. It introduces the concept of media integrity to denote the public-service values of media and journalism. In analyzing the current situation of the media, the focus was on the assessment of factors that have been identified as posing a risk to media integrity, with an overview of past developments if relevant for understanding the current situation. Five countries were covered by the research presented in this book: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia." (Introduction)
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"The mechanisms of state media funding in Serbia are used as indirect, and usually not easily visible, “soft censorship.” Soft censorship is used to promote positive coverage of - and to punish media outlets that criticize - officials or their actions. State funding of media is unregulated, unmo
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nitored, and not transparent. State funding is estimated to comprise 23 to 40 percent of the real value of Serbia’s overall advertising market. Direct state subsidies made to state-owned media that receive great amounts of state media assistance are drastically undermining free competition in Serbia’s media industry and hindering development of a free, independent, and pluralistic media." (Key findings, page 6)
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"The report analyzes 27 aspects of the media system of Serbia, basing on principles established by the Council of Europe as desirable standards in media legislation and practice. Each of 27 parts of the study describes the legal regulation of the subject matter and then provides available facts abou
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t the actual situation. The report concludes that only 4 principles are consistently and fully implemented (such as freedom to enter journalistic profession, freedom of access to the Internet and foreign media, etc), while drastic deviations from the European standards are found in media market operations, independence of media from political influences, labour-related and social rights of journalists and their safety. The report points out that the blind spot of the Serbian media system are informal alliances of ruling political forces and big industrial and commercial businesses which are allowed to infiltrate the media in a non-transparent way and fulfill through them the common interests of the state and the businesses. The report is based on surveys with editors of 240 news media, 69 media owners, 40 senior officials of political parties, 50 representatives of national minority communities, 26 interviews with representatives of state organs and with 12 journalists from the media experiencing particular pressure on editorial independence." (http://mediaobservatory.net, January 27, 2015)
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