Goran Dimitrijević: War of the state against the media beyond state control

The television scene is absolutely divided into SBB and the others, which under normal circumstances should not mean anything special, because it is just another provider, however, in Serbian society it has a social, business and political connotation, the editor and host of Pregleda dana told FoNet Newsmax Adria Goran Dimitrijević.

In the Kiosk series of interviews about the media scene in Serbia, he assessed that there is "a war that, first of all, is being waged by the state side, even though the state, by law, should not deal with the media."

The state in which the state is present in the media through direct ownership or through the cover of private companies, Dimitrijević labeled as "sad".

The situation is not much different in the printed media either, newspapers have a problem keeping up with the Internet, and tabloids that are close to the authorities through direct ownership or business deals dominate.

Dimitrijević explained that on one side there are media close to the authorities that promote the Serbian Progressive Party and its president Aleksandar Vučić, while on the other there are "rare islands of a business group that has an interest in free journalism and lonely islands, such as local media and agencies, whose influence is significantly smaller".

Rite of initiation for membership in SNS

Asked to what extent the pressures of politicians on the media and the attacks of citizens on journalists, as was the case during the Pride Parade, are connected, Dimitrijević answered that they are connected, but not always directly. He noted that in the media that are close to the state, there is a continuous campaign against all critics of the government and noted that the first job of someone who joins SNS is to "police" opponents, those whom Vučić "waters", which is "an initiation rite for all flyers".

This implies, Dimitrijević explained, "spitting" on N1, Dragan Šolak and Dragan Đilas, "although Đilas has not been spat on recently, but businessman Šolak is still being spat on," and calling journalists "traitors."

"When you systematically poison and promote Putin and Russia as the greatest friends and the West as the enemy for years," Dimitrijević predicted, it all ends up on the street and "then we have stones, fists and a bottle thrown at the cameraman", while "everyone pours out into the streets" tabloid headlines".

The Pink World of RTS

He believes that the Public Service is "obviously pressured" and reminds that, unlike private media, RTS is "ours", so it should be a service for all citizens. RTS should "just do its job", which means that the first news should be "Jovanjica", if it is the main news, "and not that it is not in Dnevnik at all".

It is not important to release only oppositionists, but also to report on affairs, problems and expensiveness, to ask people how they are, and not just to let the minister say that everything is fine, said Dimitrijević.

The war in Ukraine

Speaking about the coverage of the war in Ukraine, he pointed out that the media is divided into those who support the narrative that the government forces and those who try to report professionally.

According to him, the government first waited to see what would happen in Ukraine, and then started balancing, and there is room for that, because Europe is not unique either.

The war in Ukraine is "being fought" in Serbia through Kosovo, noted Dimitrijević and reminded the demands of the West that the situation in Kosovo be resolved faster and that the authorities take responsibility for some difficult decisions, and "it is the most difficult for the authorities to take responsibility".

This is how the war in Ukraine breaks through the media, he reasoned and observed that Serbia has a government that is "both West and East" and that the president of Serbia "has a cousin who is gay and a father on litias."

REM-ization of Serbia

Referring to the decision of the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media (REM) to assign a fifth national frequency, Dimitrijević said that for a media house like his it could be "light at the end of the tunnel", but also another manipulation.

REM's previous decision to allocate frequencies to televisions that already had them is scandalous, he pointed out, and it is even more scandalous that it was decided not to take into account how those televisions have worked so far, "a new leaf is being turned." There is nothing like turning over a new leaf on those televisions, but only with some new ones that are proven to be able to do so and have appropriate program contents.

MN/FoNet

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