According to the Bureau for Social Research (BIRODI), the news bulletins of Pink, Prva and B92 are increasingly looking less like platforms for informing voters and more like a political showcase for Aleksandar Vučić and his electoral list.
BIRODI’s monitoring of the current election campaign found a striking pattern: Vučić and the authorities are presented through stories highlighting state “successes,” international standing and support from public figures, while the Students’ List is repeatedly associated with “blockaders,” violence, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and other negative themes. The result, BIRODI says, is a media picture in which one side is consistently presented through achievements and the other through controversy and negativity.
BIRODI says this raises questions over Serbia’s rules requiring truthful, objective, complete and diverse reporting, as well as the obligation to present the other side. It has called on REM to examine entire news bulletins, arguing that political promotion and political discreditation do not necessarily happen only within formally designated election coverage.
The organization points to what it describes as content manipulation, one-sided and repeated attacks, the denial of opposing viewpoints and the omission of relevant context. It is now for REM to determine whether these practices amount to violations of Serbia’s media regulations.
