Juronujz journalists do not know who wrote the pamphlet-announcement

Two days after the Serbian Juronnews published an unsigned press release condemning the blockade of RTS as putting journalists in the "ghetto" and crucifying them, the journalists of the Juronnews newsroom still do not know who wrote the press release.

"Vremena" sources say that many suspect that the pamphlet did not come from the leading women of Juronjuz - regional director Minja Miletić and editor-in-chief Dragana Pejović, although Miletić internally stood behind the letter.

In an event that is almost never seen on the Serbian media scene, almost the entire newsroom distanced itself from the unsigned announcement, criticizing its content and tone.

As many as 68 journalists and other employees signed their own letter, which means that only a single digit number of people did not sign the letter.

Among the signatories, the former N1 star Minja Miletić and former NIN journalist Dragana Pejović, the two leading women of this television, which operates under the auspices and with the financial support of the state-owned Telekom, are not among the signatories.

"We are here to report"

In the letter, the journalists stated that they do not agree with the blocking of any media, but distanced themselves from the previous unsigned statement in which the blocking of RTS was compared to a "ghetto" and declared the "last moment" to save the media.

"We are here to report, not to call for the police or other state authorities to react against someone, especially in a case where such a reaction would probably result in violence," reads the journalist's letter.

RTS also reported this announcement, stating, however, that it was a "group of journalists" from Juronujz, and not Maltene's entire work team.

Among the signatories are the most famous faces of Juronjuz, such as Živana Šaponja Ilić, Milan Šarić, Lana Nanoski and Nemanja Milutinović. There are the names of most of the editors in the desk as well as the director of the digital media sector Jasmina Koprivica.

As "Vreme" found out, at first the house's leaders tried to put soft pressure on the employees, but then, when they saw that the journalists were united, they stopped responding.

It seems that Juronujz, as the only professional newsroom in the Telekom media space, was used to publish a statement in which, in drastic language, it calls for the end of the student blockades of Radio and Television of Serbia.

Tabloid Dictionary

Reporting on the announcement, RTS reported that the letter was supported by Alo, Večernje novosti, Politika, Tanjug, Prva and B92, Pink and Kurir. Thus, the first line-up of tabloid strikers of the regime.

"For more than 70 hours, all of us, people from the media, journalists, mostly watch silently as our colleagues are forced into camps, and as street, raw and brutal revolutionary 'justice' is carried out on them, and they do it with the kind of voluptuousness that, in any normal person, must cause not only fear, but also disgust," reads the unsigned statement from Friday (April 18).

It is added that it is the "last moment" for the "profession" to raise its voice against the "crowd" that is "re-educating the whole country according to the worst recipes of the Khmer Rouge."

Such cynical and pathetic vocabulary irresistibly reminds some sources of "Vremena" from the editorial office of Ivan Radovanović, Juronjuz columnist and one of the main media representatives of the Serbian Progressive Party government. But who wrote the statement - they were not told.

Minja Miletić and Dragana Pejović did not respond to the messages of "Vremen" journalists until the publication of this text.

Low ratings

Juronjuz, a television in Serbia created as an informational counterpart to N1, is now available in all cable offers as well as other channels financed by the state-owned Telekom.

Television in Belgrade was founded four years ago, when it attracted attention with some spectacular "transfers" from other television stations. Viewership is not at all spectacular - the so-called share is usually less than one percent in Telekom's cable system.

However, Juronuj is usually a reliable source of information and one of the few media that did not hesitate to sometimes give a voice to critics of the government, and at the same time they have access to the leaders of the regime themselves. At least that's how it was until recently.