ARD: Reporting in Serbia difficult, N1 under attack for years

NEWS 18.03.202114:26
N1

The German broadcaster ARD said on Thursday that independent reporting is hard to do in Serbia, adding that N1 TV staff have been under attack for years.

“Staff at N1 have been complaining of attempts to discredit and obstruct them and jeopardize them since they started five years ago. At present they are worried about the planned deal (between the state-owned Telekom Serbia and Telenor mobile services provider) on the Serbian cable market, fearing that they will be pushed off the market,” ARD said. It quoted Independent Journalists Association of Serbia (NUNS) President Zeljko Bodrozic who said that most media outlets in Serbia have been engaged in what he called the worst possible propaganda in favor of President Aleksandar Vucic with N1 and more recently Nova S trying to report reality professionally.

It said that Telekom Serbia, the biggest telecommunications provider in Serbia and owner of parts of the cable network, intends to merge with Czech billionaire Petr Kellners Telekom on the Serbian cable services network and recalled that an internal Telekom document which was made public said that the goal is to finally destroy its competitor SBB, the cable services provider broadcasting the Nova and N1 independent TV stations. ARD recalled that no one denied the document.

N1 Executive Producer Igor Bozic said that the market is being used as an excuse for politics and warned that the Telekom-Telenor plan could be implemented which means that “we won’t have equal competition on the market if someone uses absolutely all means at the disposal of the state to destroy certain media”.

Economics Professor Petar Djukic, a former member of the state Commission to Protect Competition (the Serbian anti-cartel watchdog) said the situation is clear, adding that the Telekom document exists and says that the goal is to destroy the competition. “From the aspect of the competition watchdog, that’s enough to say stop,” he said. But, ARD said, the question is whether the Commission will say stop.

According to Bodrozic, the goal of the regime is to take complete control of the media. “Obviously, the state has found a partner in Telenor who is willing to cooperate with the powerful as it did in Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary and create an illusion of democracy and media pluralism,” he said. “If (Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor) Orban can do something like this in the European Union, what can we expect,” he said.

ARD recalled that Serbia has been a European Union candidate country since 2012 and has been getting bad grades from Brussels in terms of freedom of the media with the European Commission saying that it is carefully monitoring the planned merger of Telekom Serbia and Telenor. Reporters Without Border has also voiced conceren, it added.