The challenges of working in local media are reflected in numerous pressures who journalists and female journalists at the bar are experiencing it. Due to the uncertainty of project co-financing, they are constantly under existential fear. Self-censorship and pressures that do not stop at the journalist, but
they also reach the family.
As many as 85 percent of local media members of the Association of Local and Independent Media "Local Press" confirmed the existence of violations of the freedom and rights of the media, i.e. journalists, according to the latest Research on Pressures on Local Media (2022 - 2024), conducted by Local Press.
"Individual editors and journalists of local media are exposed to continuous psychological pressures, which do not have to be direct, but are a consequence of the overall political and social atmosphere." In the long term, it leaves serious consequences for them, which is why they organized or sought psychological support," it is stated in the Research Local press.
Uncertainty of project co-financing – the root of many problems
Project co-financing is a model that many media depend on. Whether their project will "pass" in the competition determines a lot. According to the Law on Public Information and Media, all cities and municipalities are obliged to announce a competition for co-financing of media projects by March 1st. It has been shown that the legal provision, which should give local media the certainty that they will have the opportunity to try to get funds from the city budgets, is not respected by the majority.
The general secretary of Local Press, Snezana Milošević, believes that the uncertainty that comes with project co-financing directly reflects on the financial sustainability of the media, especially local ones that are weak in terms of personnel and finances.
"Every 'resentment' to local authorities also conditions the reduction or even cancellation of funds from local budgets for informing citizens for that media," says the interviewee.
The members of Lokal Presa record a decline in their income from project co-financing, but not because they no longer need these funds.
"Means for informing citizens make up a high percentage of the income of local media. From year to year, looking at the total, these funds grow. Thus, over nine and a half million euros were allocated for the project co-financing model in 2015, and over 15 million euros just seven years later. At the same time, the members of Local Press as independent media recorded a drop in their income from project co-financing from 34 to as much as 84 percent, which is the case in Šabac. This decline in participation was not caused by higher incomes and better business conditions, but by political pressures. At the same time, the pro-government media for the observed seven years recorded an increase in their income from this model. Radio Television Vranje achieved record growth in budget revenues intended for informing citizens. It increased its revenues from the 2022 budget by as much as 120 percent compared to 2015. That's how media activity, if you are close to the government, has become a lucrative business," explains the general secretary of Local Press, Snežana Milošević.
Researcher Tijana Blagojev, one of the three authors of the aforementioned Local Press research, advocates a similar position.
"Project co-financing has been going through various types of criticism for years. Instead of funding and supporting content in the public interest, this model no longer delivers. This can be seen according to the last competition, where things are happening that did not happen before. Project co-financing threatens the survival of local media more than it helps them, because in those competitions, in most cases, those media that are uncritically inclined towards the local government get the money. There are also media that are not actually media and that
funds go who knows where. Obviously, there is no political will to solve this problem. Associations are trying to draw attention to these problems, but citizens should also be more involved in this process. A citizens' assembly could be the solution. Then it would be possible to talk to citizens about the ways in which they can get involved in supporting the local media they trust. That could, for example, be sending a request to the institutions", believes Blagojev.
The interlocutor adds that the question of the survival of local media is also problematic abroad.
"They are competing with the media that are on the national and international level, but also with social networks, the growth of artificial intelligence... They have to compete in such conditions, and they have neither the resources nor the financial opportunities to be their counterparts," explains Tijana Blagojev. .
Advertising is another ground for pressure on local media
Even when it comes to advertising, which is also a potential source of income, local media face pressures in the form of cancellation of commercial contracts, according to Local Press Research.
"In addition to project co-financing, local media are financed from the sale, when it comes to the press, from advertising, to a small extent from subscriptions and foreign donations." If we bear in mind that the local media markets are small, financially weak and underdeveloped, then it is clear why the local media are on the verge of survival," says Snezana Milošević.
The question arises as to how the uncertainty of project co-financing affects the choice of topics that are applied for in tenders for funding, at least when it comes to media that have a chance of getting their project approved.
Self-censorship of local media is a daily occurrence
According to Snežana Milošević, "over time, it turned out that the uncertainty of project co-financing is a significant factor that affects the self-censorship of the local media."
Self-censorship already occurs when applying for funds from the budget. Taking all factors into account, media workers are aware that topics that point to a problem or reveal facts that the authorities don't like, simply "won't pass".
"The topics that are applied for means of informing citizens are general, benign, non-reprehensible and very rarely deal with real problems in the community: corruption, clientelism or topics that can cause problems for the ruling party. So, over
self-censorship, we come to the point that project co-financing indirectly affects the quality of information and the choice of topics of local media", Snežana Milošević explains.
In addition to the awareness of journalists about what is "allowed" and what is not, censorship and self-censorship are caused by other factors. According to the interlocutor, "self-censorship over the last two decades has seen a growing trend due to various models of pressure applied to the media."
"In the past, the main pressures were threats and court cases, and today we have developed a wide range of pressures, starting from the impossibility of obtaining information, through discrimination by the media through non-invitation to events, non-notification, delays in responses to
threat on social networks. All this reinforces both self-censorship and censorship in the media. Censorship in the media has significantly strengthened after the privatization of local media and is a reflection of the attitudes of media owners. If we bear in mind that a significant number of traditional local media are in the hands of businessmen who belong to the ruling party, we can more often talk about content censorship," says Milošević.
The position of local journalists on the issue of freedom in the working environment;
Censorship and self-censorship are particularly interesting issues during the election cycle. Given that local elections were recently held throughout Serbia, for the second time in six months, researcher Tijana Blagojev draws attention to a worrying phenomenon.
"Although 85 percent of the surveyed local journalists stated that they did not experience pressure during the pre-election campaign, in the further steps of the research they stated that they did not even report on the pre-election campaign. In this way, they avoided pressure. That's it
worrisome, because it shows that the local media are consciously entering into a kind of self-censorship", explains Blagojev.
He adds that the pressures on local journalists are becoming more and more sophisticated. As he says, they were followed and greeted from the car while going to the store. Can we then blame them at all for not reporting on the election campaign?
While most local media outlets resort to self-censorship in order to survive, some choose not to, expecting consequences in return.
More and more frequent pressures on the families of journalists at the station
Serbia is among the countries where journalists were most often threatened in 2022, according to the report "War in Europe and the struggle for the right to report", by the Council of Europe's Platform for Promoting the Protection of Journalism and the Safety of Journalists, according to the Association of Serbian Journalists.
The local situation is particularly specific. A small environment carries great pressures, which become even greater when the local media does not agree to play "by the rules". The principle of "we all know everything", characteristic of smaller cities, can mean daily anxiety for local journalists. That pressures on the families of local journalists are not at all rare and naive is proven, among others, by the family of the chief and responsible editor of "Jugpress" from Leskovac, Ljiljana Stojanović. Not only does her husband, according to her, suffer pressures at work, but her calling also affects the choice of their children's work environment.
Due to numerous pressures on local media and their workers and the setting of sometimes insurmountable obstacles for objective reporting, the question arises as to what keeps local journalists in this calling, especially in their local communities.
"Local media, like two decades before, survive at the expense of the people who work in them, their low salaries and great enthusiasm", believes the general secretary of Local press Snezana Milošević.
Where there is no great enthusiasm, citizens remain deprived of information about events in the local community. Such areas are called media deserts.
Media deserts should be explored in Serbia and the region as well
"Media deserts are areas where it is difficult or impossible to get relevant, diverse and reliable information from independent local, regional and community media, i.e. civil society media. It does not necessarily mean that there is no reporting media in a certain area. There can be media there, but if their reporting is uniform, if there is no pluralism of information, if only one side of the story is shown, that area can be identified as a media desert", explains researcher Tijana Blagojev, one of the authors and editor of the first comprehensive comparative research on the state of local media in all 27 member states of the European Union.
The research "Discovering media deserts in Europe: Risks and opportunities for local and community-oriented media in the EU" showed that media deserts are much more pronounced in the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe than in the countries of Northern Europe.
There are several factors that connect the state of local media in Serbia with the state of the investigated regions in the European Union.
"The independence of the editorial policy, pressures, financial problems, are recognized as challenges that exist in our country as well. It is worrying that some institutions are functioning there and there is at least in some sense an independent judiciary and executive power. It does not exist in our country. That's why media deserts are a much bigger problem here," Blagojev believes.
When asked if she can recognize areas in Serbia that can be characterized as media deserts, the interviewee singles out Kruševac and Šabac.
"I think that media deserts definitely exist. Some areas are more exposed to it, and some less. From the conversations we held at events and focus groups about the safety of local journalists, Kruševac and Šabac show the degrees of a worrying trend.
endangering security. Security is one of five indicators used to determine whether an area is a media desert or not. That's why I can say that certain cities and areas in Serbia have indications of media deserts", explains Tijana Blagojev and adds that a definitive conclusion on this requires a detailed analysis to confirm the aforementioned assumption.
Indicators of media deserts
Due to certain similarities, Tijana Blagojev emphasizes that the recommendations from the research on media deserts in the EU can be applied in our country as well.
"The fact that there is a lack of data on viewership and readership on the site, which makes it difficult to see the audience analysis, must be changed. Roundtables should be organized where it would be determined what is the public interest for a certain local community (and this already exists in our media legislation), and competitions for project co-financing would be organized based on that. A citizens' assembly, which the associations are thinking about, could be a solution. The state should be aware that the problems are not the same in every local community and that the criteria for allocating funds should be clear and transparent", says Blagojev.
Findings from other countries and conclusions based on other research are not enough, because media deserts are a complex phenomenon that requires commitment. That is why researcher Tijana Blagojev believes that it is necessary to conduct research on media deserts in Serbia and countries in the region and compare the data with research on media deserts in the European Union. He adds that the solidarity and togetherness of the media community is a very important factor for improving all problems in the media world.
The author is a second-year journalism student at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Belgrade
* The multimedia story was created within the course "Online Journalism" on the second
year of undergraduate studies in journalism at the Faculty of Political Sciences - University of
Belgrade. Mentor and subject teacher: Assoc. Dr. Marko Nedeljković.
