Mediameter: Vucic most criticised, BIRODI: Quite opposite

N1

The two methodologies resulted in an opposite picture of the presentation of Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic in the media, one focusing on print, while the other on TVs, N1 reported.

According to the Mediameter, a research and scientific project monitoring the development of the print media in Serbia, findings the most criticised person in newspapers is Vucic, while the Bureau for Social Researches (BIRODI) says the President is the most present politician in the media with ten times greater access to TV channels than the runner-up, and almost always in positive context.

The Mediameter observed print media and found that the most significant number of articles from July to September 2019, was about Vucic, who was also the most negatively presented on front pages.

„There is pluralism, freedom of thinking. But, the sharp division exists between weeklies that are critical about the regime and dailies in which you can read a column with understanding and justification of the authorities. An example is (the tabloid) Informer,“ the founder of the Quarterly Mediameter Dejan Vuk Stankovic said.

BIRODI, however, warns that the attention should be at the methodology and that conclusions about media freedom cannot be drawn based only on print media, since the majority of people consume information from TVs.

„Bringing conclusions based only on the daily and periodic press which not more than ten percent of the people read, is, according to our data, methodologically wrong,“ BIRODI’s Zoran Gavrilovic said.

Its study shows that from September 1 to November 30 2019, Vucic has been on the screens for 2,004 minutes, positively presented in 91.1 percent of the time.

The runner-up was Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, while the third place was reserved for an opposition leader Dragan Djilas. He ‘occupied ‘ 166 minutes during which was negatively presented in 91.9 percent.

Gavrilovic said that Vucic was the main indicator in the research and that there could not be a diversity of any kind.

The Pres Council warns the situation with print media cannot be judged only by the frequency of someone’s appearance and points at an increased number of violations of journalists’ Code.

„Those results are overwhelmingly upsetting. There are some 5,000 articles in which the Code is violated. In almost all of them more than ones,“ Gordana Novakovic from the Council said.

She added that „the situation with dailies is worsening every year and that the number of violations is on the rise despite our efforts and warnings to stop that.“