One of the most read portals in Serbia warns that only the editorial tandem arrived from Blic will be able to publish the content
Portal nova.rs, one of the most widely read in Serbia, could soon publish completely different texts from those to which the audience has been accustomed for years.
Not from show business or about the bizzare things that tabloid journalism tends to do, but from politics.
After protests by employees and colleagues from other media against the introduction of a new editorial duo from Blic, now nova.rs it says that management will deny journalists full access to the system for publishing texts.
In other words, every text could pass through the hands of the new editor-in-chief Marko Stjepanović and his deputy Ivana Mastilović Jasnić, whom the editorial office welcomed as an "occupation administration" brought from the "regime Bljuc".
Nova.rs he states that the introduction of technical barriers has been confirmed to them by sources and that everything could start as early as this Thursday, when the strange ultimatum set by the management to the journalists expires - to take their severance pay and leave; or to work according to the notes of new editors.
Referring, bizarrely, to French laws, the company Alpak Capital, which recently sold N1, Nova, Danas and Radar, now employs nova.rs offers two-thirds of the monthly salary for each year of service.
Therefore, whoever has been working there since the portal was founded in 2020, could count on probably three to six thousand euros in severance pay. He who works for a shorter time, for him less.
However, there is nothing to indicate that a large number of journalists could accept this "offer" in the short term, convinced that the idea is to silence them before election day itself.
"Perhaps then we should be uber professional and turn our heads a little to the other side, wait for the publication of what will happen - pressures, threats, pre-election machinations, post-election creativity", writes Ratko Femić, the now lamented deputy editor of the portal, in the new issue of "Vremena".
According to the nova.rs, now journalists and editors could be deprived of the possibility of independently publishing texts in CMS, which would put control over what is published in the hands of editors hired by the new management.
In normal times, it would be normal for an editor to say what gets published and how and what doesn't. But these are not normal times.
What does it look like in practice? Each portal publishes texts through a so-called CMS (Content Management System) in which the content is created, processed, published and placed on the page.
This system offers the possibility of different levels of access. For example, a novice journalist can only get the right to write articles, but not to publish, delete, or change them.
All of this is ultimately controlled by the site administrator, usually an individual or a maintenance firm hired by management.
Journalists nova.rs it is "additionally worrying" that in their case it is United Cloud, one of the numerous subsidiary companies of the United Group that recently sold media to Alpak Capital. This makes the management of United Group "a direct accomplice in the suppression of media freedom ten days before the elections", the portal writes.
Femić previously revealed that as of September 22, the portal no longer has a budget for advertising texts.
We are talking about money that is mostly given to Google and Facebook in order to favor the texts of some portal in its algorithm. All mass and tabloid portals in Serbia pay for it.
According to the source of "Vremena", the regime's media spend up to a dizzying 40.000 euros per month for these purposes, artificially increasing the "readability" that is the "click rate" of their content.
Without that money, Femic complained, nova.rs it fell from third to sixth place in terms of visitors.
But, employees in nova.rs have largely decided not to remain silent. Allegedly, in a secret vote, 75 percent were against the arrival of the new editorial board, and there are certainly more of them who stood up against the owner's move by name and surname.
So, if the software filter is really put in the hands of the new editorial duo, the public will know about it without a doubt.
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