Nobody is tired.

At the time of writing this text, it is the eighth day of the student (and civil) blockade of Radio and Television of Serbia. This is the second attempt by protesting students to block the work of the public service and - the first successful one. RTS has not broadcast a regular program for six days. On Thursday, when this issue of "Vremena" is in front of readers, the situation may be significantly different from the one we have now, but, according to everything that is happening, that is unlikely.

And it started harmlessly and without any indication that it will have more effect than previous blockades. Somewhere around 22 p.m., on the night of April 14, the students announced on their official social media accounts that "something nice" was coming. We soon found out what: RTS buildings in Takovska Street and in Košutnjak, in the Avala film complex, were blocked. At the same time, the building of Radio-television Vojvodina (RTV) in Novi Sad was also blocked.

At first, the response of citizens was weak. Despite numerous appeals and calls from students, on that first night people simply did not even hear that something was happening. That is why the blockade of RTV was stopped at first, but the citizens gathered in the choir gathered the next day (April 15) as a sign of apology to the students. However, unlike RTS, RTV has as many as nine entrances to the building, so employees can enter without hindrance and the program is broadcast. RTS lasted barely 48 hours, and since the evening of April 16, it has practically not broadcast any news programs, which include Jutarnji program, Vesti, Dnevnik 1, 2 and 3, Belgrade Chronicle, and all other programs that are normally broadcast live. The few living words that are heard and seen, RTS takes over from Television Prva, the same one that a few months ago broadcast a propaganda "documentary" in which certain families of the victims of the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad were abused.

The students blocked RTS until two demands are met: the announcement of a new competition for members of the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media (REM) or, if that does not happen - the shutdown of RTS.

That the students will last (at this point) eight days is no surprise to anyone. They endured five months in the blockade, they endured hundreds of kilometers of walking in all weather conditions, they managed to reach Strasbourg by bicycle (all 80 of them, as many as went)... But the fact that the RTS will give in is somewhat of a surprise.

photo: Milena Vlajić / Fonet

AND THAT'S HOW THE FUN BEGAN

The first day under the blockade was only slightly disrupted by RTS. In the Morning Program, the viewers were greeted by the same team that produced Dnevnik 3 the previous evening, although in different clothes, which is quite normal, because RTS has a fund. As the day went on, things got weirder.

The same presenter, Milenko Krišan, also hosted the Morning Program and all the daily newspapers and the Belgrade Chronicle. He stayed in the studio for so long that people on social networks wondered if he would also be the host and the red and blue contestant in Slagalica. The news was always hosted by Vesna Radosavljević, who in the days that followed would play a key role in ensuring that the few live programs actually happened. At some point, on the second day of the blockade, on April 15, Krishan was replaced by his colleague Marko Ivas, but he was gone the next day.

Ivas took over Dnevnik 2 and read the first announcement of RTS, which caused serious indignation of students in the blockade, as well as citizens. So he says: "Radio-television of Serbia demands from students to end the blockade of public service facilities. Preventing employees from coming to their workplaces, and even that food is delivered to those who work in the building, is violence, and the saddest thing is that it comes from those who advocate for a society in which there must be no violence and illegal pressures and in which every voice must be heard, which is a policy that RTS supports in all its programs, more than any other media in Serbia and more than students with their practical behavior The belief that such a society can be built on the ruins of a public service is more dangerous than those who encourage such a belief. Unfortunately, the building that many people have blocked for all the shortcomings of the society they live in still bears the scars that this society can be re-educated by. So is it a special form of masochism? On the contrary, public service is a place where everyone gets space they contribute to make this society better, whether they are engaged in science, art, sports or education. And everyone knows this very well, just as they know that for a long time RTS is the only place in Serbia where people who think differently meet and talk and the only program that those who think differently can watch, listen to and follow together, without anyone feeling insulted or underestimated. Unfortunately, more and more often it is the only place where they can hear something they don't agree with, which is important for a society that is still getting used to democratic values. This is not a fantasy of RTS employees, but concrete data from research and polls that persistently show for years that the citizens of Serbia trust their public service the most, even when they criticize it, and they criticize it every day."

photo: vladimir sporčić / tanjug

MANIAC MANIFESTO

In this announcement, RTS actually presented a kind of manifesto and an announcement of its behavior that followed in the following days. To begin with, they stated the falsehood that the students were preventing the delivery of food to the employees. Furthermore, students were filmed helping the police carry bags of food, which were then brought into the building by the police themselves.

Second, what does "a building that still bears the scars inflicted on it by those who said that this society can only be re-educated through violence" mean? It means that RTS compared the students in the blockade with the NATO alliance that bombed the building in Aberdare in April 1999. Neither is that comparison appropriate, nor are the "scars on the building" the most terrible consequence of the bombing: sixteen workers of this house died in that bombing. It was said on RTS in the days when they were still broadcasting the program that this blockade was the most difficult period in which this house found itself in its history. This is the most difficult period, not the death of sixteen colleagues, who died in seconds, after the building was hit by two missiles. This is the most difficult, not the fact that a media company was declared a legitimate military target in 1999. Well good.

Finally, both in that first and in all subsequent announcements, RTS continued like a parrot on steroids to repeat that they are the only media company where dialogue is possible, where different opinions can be heard, and so on. So let's pay some attention to that claim.

It is true that RTS has one, maybe two programs in which the debate form is present. But form is one thing, substance is another. And that essence consists in a simple thing: there is no debate of dissenters on RTS, but anyone who thinks outside the mainstream and within a hair's breadth of the authorities, gets a "prilepko" from the authorities, tasked with shouting and not allowing the others to have a say, along the way waving some kind of printed photos and tweets like those used on Pink and Informer. The difference between RTS and Pink is that on Pink the presenter says: "Let's see those papers", while on RTS the presenter shyly and conciliatoryly warns that this is not really desirable. And the camera zooms in on both televisions.

Furthermore, let's see why RTS is the only media where people with different opinions come. Well, it's simple: when RTS calls, everyone responds. Critics of the government come to have their voice heard on at least one television with national coverage, and government representatives because they know they are welcome guests.

What the independent media's attempt to win over both sides looks like, we can convey to the dear audience from the personal experience of the weekly "Vreme". For these twelve years, we have tried to get statements, interviews, and even participation in forums from numerous representatives of the Government of Serbia. Our attempts almost always had the same outcome. The person in charge of the media in any ministry that we called would eventually beg us not to call again because "the minister gets angry and shouts". Of course we didn't care about that, but for all these years in power, Aleksandar Vučić gave two interviews for "Vreme", as the first deputy prime minister, in 2013 and 2014. At the interview itself, he tried to argue, to blame us for asking him certain questions only so that we could brag in society that we were brave enough to ask him this and that, and of course he also asked us for authorization. Of course we didn't give it away.

We can also speak first hand about RTS's attitude towards dissidents of the government. Let's say that the author of this text, apart from internal politics, specializes in something else, specifically, violence against women. Colleagues often need statements on that topic, especially when the topic is the quality of media reporting on it. If someone honest from RTS dares to call, they go through torture of incomprehensible proportions: the editors and associated satellites are able to search even ten years back what you said about RTS or where you were during certain events that marked us these 13 years. Let the audience keep in mind that the author of this text, whose relationship with RTS was investigated 10 years ago, is still only a journalist, which means: a person with a fairly low public profile. And she wasn't even invited to talk about a political topic, but about where the media go wrong when they report on violence against women. Well, then imagine what they are doing to the more exposed or to those who are really relevant political actors or who come to talk about political topics.

photo: marija janković

THEY TRIED TO DRAG US INTO THE MUD

As the blockade progressed, RTS got quieter and quieter. At first they tried to show "commitment" by broadcasting a news program from an unknown location. Vesna Radosavljević was reading the news in front of a roll-up on which RTS was written in black letters on a red background. Now there is no more of that, there is that nonsensical telop with a photo of the blockade in Takovska and the inscription "RTS trapped in the ghetto", but on the website they regularly post announcements, so we know that they filed criminal charges against unknown persons because of the blockade. And that they are able to compare students with Nazis. Their website is currently the only place where they exist, so they announced the arrival of 80 cyclists in Strasbourg, an event that marked the day of April 15, but also the entire previous week, on the website as the sixth piece of news in the "Society" section. There was no room for that on the front page of the site.

On the front page, however, there was room for two contents: a column by the editor-in-chief of "Vremen" Filip Švarm and a strange letter of support from Euronews.

Let's do ours first. Let's face it: students are neither beyond nor above criticism, especially at a time when they are the movement that enjoys the greatest support from citizens. During the blockade, someone printed warrants for the editors of various RTS programs. The SNS did the same, through its stormtroopers, to some of our colleagues, specifically, Isidora Kovačević, a journalist at TV Šabac at the time. The case of the warrant for Isidora Kovačević is one of the most blatant examples of intimidation and attempts to silence a female journalist. And a principle is a principle.

The warrants for the editors of RTS were condemned by the Association of Serbian Journalists and the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia, and were also the subject of Filip Švarm's comments on the "Vremena" website. RTS transmitted that text, properly citing the source and, frankly, no one can stop them from doing so. However, someone from RTS misused the comment. On the same evening, in something that was not Dnevnik 2, because it was not broadcast from a studio (not even one in an unknown location), nor was it broadcast live, but prepared in advance, it was heard that the RTS blockade was condemned by the newsrooms, so it goes in order like this: "Vreme, Informer, Hello, Kurir..."

How many people still trust poor RTS is best shown by the fact that we were showered with questions and insults on social networks. Therefore, a part of our audience also believed them. The editors of "Vremena" asked for a denial, and instead received news on the website where the title says that we demand a correction.

Maybe not worse, but the newsroom of Juronuj Television went a lot crazier. First, RTS published a letter of support to itself, which may not have been written by Juronjuz columnist Ivan Radovanović, but may have been written by someone copying his style and his anger of unknown cause and origin. And then, in a magnificent reversal, almost the entire editorial staff of Juronuz, i.e. its entire journalistic section, distanced itself from that unsigned letter of support.

DISHONORABLE GOVERNMENT

We have already mentioned how little attention RTS paid to the tour to Strasbourg. Well, on Sunday, April 20, in the show "Impression of the Week" on TV Nova S, we learned something else from the students who drove to Strasbourg. RTS was not able to send a team to follow them, although television stations with much less resources and personnel did it: N1, Nova S, Insider and numerous other online media newsrooms from Serbia.

Instead, the public service of all citizens told the girl, a student from Novi Sad who was in charge of media relations and was accompanying the cyclists, that she could send them video materials. The girl, hard-working and responsible, is not a student of journalism or anything related to journalism, that's what she did, aware of the importance of the feat of her colleagues appearing on RTS.

RTS "spiced up" the already sloppy and excessive reporting by signing the materials with the names of its cameramen for a large part of the tour. Aware of copyright infringement, the girl who made and sent the videos warned them several times. Only in the last report that they broadcast on that topic, did they indicate that "the video material was prepared by Students in Blockade".

THE MEANING OF THE BLOCKADE

That those warrants will hit the students, and not only them, was also seen on Sunday, April 20, in the Hit Tweet show on Pink. There, the President of the National Assembly Ana Brnabić and REM spokeswoman Olivera Zekić dared to mention the name of Isidore Kovačević. And to tell the lie about how that case was resolved.

"Ana Brnabić and Darko Glišić were the first to talk about all kinds of things on television the day after my arrest warrants. The state did not solve my case. The case was not solved at all," Isidora Kovačević announced on all her social networks.

In short, this is how her case was "solved": the police searched for the suspect for seven months, then caught some unfortunate person who was in prison the whole time they were looking for him, because he was a petty dealer. Then he said in court that for his own safety he must not say "who made him take the blame". So, it is clear that SNS is behind the attack on her, and in order to "speed up" the process, they found some petty criminal to blame and say how they solved the case. It is still not known who designed the warrant, printed it and ordered its distribution.

During these 13 years, SNS has left behind numerous open wounds, and no matter how understanding they are for the ignorance of students, some of those wounds are too deep to play with. Simply, what was witty and funny 13 years ago is no longer a joke but a trigger for trauma.

But let's go back to the blocking of RTS. Why the blockade of RTS with the request sent to the Parliament, in connection with REM? Is that also a consequence of student ignorance? Well no. They could block the REM building. But how many people know where that building is, how many people are aware that REM is an important factor in the hyperproduction of media poisoning from local televisions? And not only that. RTS has been blocked since the first day, actually, since the fall of the canopy, which is the immediate reason for the protests that have lasted since November 5 and the blockades that began on November 22, a neuralgic point for all citizens of Serbia. Because RTS is not blocked because it invents and publishes falsehoods. RTS is blocked because it remains silent and does not publish accurate and important information. They are blocked because they are neither public nor a service, and above all they do not belong to all citizens.

In the meantime, according to the information coming from RTS, the assembly of workers of this house came out with four demands. This assembly asked the management of the public service and the competent services to urgently address them and give clear guidelines for work during the blockade. They also demand the resignation of all editors and journalists who did not respect media laws and the Code of Journalists and allowed untruths and insults against their colleagues, students and other citizens to be presented in Dnevnik 2 and other news programs.

They also reminded that, due to the non-reporting of the student protest on March 15, the RTS Archive was permanently deprived of that material and in the future will have to use the documentation of other television stations that covered it. The last request is to immediately stop the practice of sending part-time journalists and technicians on high-risk tasks, such as reporting from protests and rallies, because the precariousness of their position absolutely does not allow them to be abused in that way.

The only doubt is how many workers make up that group and what they will do if their demands are not met. However, the conclusion that is self-imposed, even though it cannot be verified for now, due to the blocking and non-broadcasting of the program, is that this company with 2500 employees is facing at least one strike, if not several strikes at once, because the employees organize themselves in different ways. Even the end of the student blockade, if by some miracle, would not bring them back on the air now.