Almost 40 percent of Serbians don’t trust the media

NEWS 26.06.201909:12
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Belgrade daily Danas on Wednesday cited a poll which showed that 39 percent of Serbians do not trust the media while just 23 percent partly or fully trust the media.

The poll results were presented at the Media Talks conference which was organized by USAID. The poll of 1,500 people was conducted by the Center for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID) NGO.  

CeSID Program Director Bojan Klacar told the conference that the lack of trust is highest among educated people in urban developed areas between the ages of 20 and 40.  

“Fake news are viewed as a problem by every fourth person polled with 16 percent saying that the problem is the influence of political parties,” Klacar said and added that 15 percent see a lack of professional journalists as a problem.  

He said that 10 percent of the polled said tabloidization and vulgarization were problems, nine percent said censorship, eight percent said low quality content and 24 percent of the polled said they choose the media that they trust.  

Klacar said that the weather forecast is the most popular local topic, followed by communal information and local culture events.  

“More than a third of the polled want the media to be open and take into account the views of the audience and every fifth person says that it’s important to be able to comment on web sites,” he said.  

Short videos are the preferred format for 26 percent of the polled, factual stories are preferred by 19 percent and justt seven percent want to read analytical stories.  

A third of the polled don’t know how to access Internet content.   The poll showed that 11 percent of the population are prepared to pay for media content and would set aside an average of 745 Dinars (1 Euro – 117 Dinars) for that purpose.