SERBIA MEDIA SUSTAINABILITY INDEX 2019 Tracking Development of Sustainable Independent Media Around the World SERBIA AT A GLANCE GENERAL MEDIA-SPECIFIC ▶ Population: 7,001,444 (January 1, 2018 est. ▶ GNI (2017 - Atlas): $36,4 billion (World Bank ▶ Number of active print outlets, radio ▶ Annual advertising revenue in media Serbian Statistical Office) Development Indicators, 2017) stations, television stations, Internet sector: €180 million‒€200 million (estimate) ▶ Capital city: Belgrade ▶ GNI per capita (2017 – Atlas method): news portals: Print: 916; Radio Stations: ▶ Internet usage: Households having an 326; Television Stations: 227; Web Portals: ▶ Ethnic groups (% of population): Serb $5,180 (World Bank Development Indicators, internet connection: 72.9% (as of September 83.3%, Hungarian 3.5%, Romani 2.1%, 2017) 736; Agencies: 26; Other: 17; Total: 2,248 2018. Source: Statistical Office of the registered media. (source: Serbian Business Bosniak 2%, other 5.7%, undeclared or ▶ Literacy rate: 98.8% (male 99.5%, female Republic of Serbia.). Top news Internet unknown 3.4% (CIA World Factbook, 2011 98.2%) (CIA World Factbook, 2018 est.) Registers Agency) portals: (average daily real users): Blic Top three 948,000; Kurir 913,000; Espreso 339,000 and est.) ▶ President or top authority: President ▶ Newspaper circulation statistics: dailies by circulation: Informer (average daily Telegraf 327,000. (source: Gemius) ▶ Religions (% of population): Orthodox Aleksandar Vučić (since May 31, 2017) 84.6%, Catholic 5%, Muslim 3.1%, Protestant sales in July 2018: 102,000), Večernje Novosti 1%, atheist 1.1%, other 0.8% (includes (49,000), Blic (47,000). (source: IPSOS) agnostics, other Christians, Eastern ▶ Broadcast ratings: TV: 72% of total religionists, Jewish), undeclared or unknown population (daily reach); Radio: 57% (weekly 4.5% (CIA World Factbook, 2011 est.) reach) (Source: IPSOS) ▶ Languages (% of population): Serbian ▶ News agencies: Beta (private), FoNet (official) 88.1%, Hungarian 3.4%, Bosnian (private); Tanjug (formally deleted from the 1.9%, Romani 1.4%, other 3.4%, undeclared register of economic companies but still or unknown 1.8% (CIA World Factbook, 2011 active under government auspices and est.) financing) MEDIA SUSTAINABILITY INDEX: SERBIA SCORE KEY Unsustainable, Anti-Free Press (0–1): Country does not meet or only minimally meets objectives. Government and laws actively hinder free media development, professionalism SUSTAINABLE is low, and media-industry activity is minimal. Unsustainable Mixed System (1–2): Country minimally meets objectives, with segments of the legal system and NEAR government opposed to a free media system. Evident progress in free-press advocacy, increased professionalism, and new 2.35 SUSTAINABILITY 2.26 media businesses may be too recent to judge sustainability. 2.17 2.12 2.12 2.10 2.06 2.03 1.94 1.90 1.89 Near Sustainability (2–3): Country has progressed in meeting 1.84 1.79 1.77 multiple objectives, with legal norms, professionalism, and the 1.64 1.61 1.60 1.59 1.55 SUSTAINABILITY 1.51 1.50 1.47 1.47 business environment supportive of independent media. Advances 1.39 MIXED SYSTEM UNSUSTAINABLE 1.30 have survived changes in government and have been codified in 1.25 1.10 law and practice. However, more time may be needed to ensure 1.09 1.07 1.05 that change is enduring and that increased professionalism and the media business environment are sustainable. Sustainable (3–4): Country has media that are considered 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2019 UNSUSTAINABLE ANTI-FREE PRESS FREE PROFESSIONAL PLURALITY OF BUSINESS SUPPORTING generally professional, free, and sustainable, or to be approaching SPEECH JOURNALISM NEWS SOURCES MANAGEMENT INSTITUTIONS these objectives. Systems supporting independent media OBJECTIVES have survived multiple governments, economic fluctuations, and changes in public opinion or social conventions. Scores for all years may be found online at https://www.irex.org/msi ast year brought yet more upheaval to Serbia’s In March, the ruling Serbia Progressive Party (SNS) won a OVERALL already-turbulent politics. In January, Oliver Ivanovic, plurality in elections for the Belgrade City Assembly. The SCORE a prominent Kosovo Serb politician, was gunned year finished with mass demonstrations against President down in North Mitrovica, a majority ethnic-Serb Aleksandar Vucic and his government, prompted in part by an enclave in Kosovo. Ivanovic had broken with assault on opposition politician Borko Stefanovic. 1.45 Belgrade’s political machine and had accused Serbian Major obstacles to Serbia’s development and prosperity security forces of involvement in Mitrovica’s rampant crime. L include weak rule of law, lack of free media and independent In turn, top-ranking politicians had demonized him, and some courts, corruption, an inefficient bureaucracy, and weak The climate for journalists in Belgrade media had labeled him a traitor. Two police officers property rights linked to the country’s post-socialist Serbia deteriorated in 2018. and an aide who worked in Ivanovic’s office have been restitution process. Serbia’s growth has long trailed that of Officials insult and even endanger arrested in connection with the killing. journalists by calling them other Central and Eastern European countries. Gross Domestic enemies of society or “foreign Despite ongoing normalization talks between Serbia and Product per capita is among the lowest in the region, and the agents.” A media coalition broke Kosovo, relations between the two countries remain bumpy, average salary is below €500 ($565) per month. Though on off talks with the government as evidenced by three events in 2018: the rise, the amount of foreign direct investment is well below remittances sent back by the diaspora, despite generous last year after none of its ▶ The presidents of Serbia and Kosovo discussed incentives the government offered to investors. On the other demands for better conditions a possible land exchange: Serbia would get hand, Serbia has run a budget surplus in the past two years, had been met. Compounding North Mitrovica in exchange for a predominantly and in 2018 it reversed earlier pension cuts. these issues, the number of ethnic-Albanian area east of the border with quality journalism outlets is Kosovo. The idea sparked huge protests in the Last year the head of a respected fiscal watchdog group shrinking, and adapting to the Kosovo capital, Pristina. publicly questioned the reliability of some official statistics, digital era while maintaining and the director of the statistical agency defended the ▶ Kosovo imposed 100-percent tariffs on imports credibility is a pressing question agency’s methods and conclusions. The disagreement was from Serbia, accusing Belgrade of campaigning for conscientious Serbian significant because it jibed with widespread suspicions that against Kosovo’s membership in Interpol. media. Serbia’s overall score for the agency massages the numbers to the government’s the MSI dropped slightly this ▶ Kosovo’s parliament voted to create a national benefit. year, with scores in Objectives army, violating a constitutional provision that According to a survey of one thousand people by the Serbia 1 and 2 (freedom of speech designates NATO troops as the only armed forces 21 think tank, around one-fifth of Serbian citizens want to and professional journalism, permitted to operate in Kosovo. respectively) showing losses, and emigrate. Most of those are young people, and almost all want it remains in the “unsustainable Serbia’s relations with neighbors Montenegro and Croatia also to go to the West. mixed” classification. deteriorated. 3 MEDIA SUSTAINABILITY INDEX 2019 SERBIA sadaOBJECTIVE 1: said that pressure from civil society and abroad had only six of its nine members since December FREEDOM OF 1.47 has helped Serbia’s media and that media realities 2015 and has been without a president for almost SPEECH received more attention from the government in three years. Given the agency’s reputation for 2018 than they had in previous years. passivity and the declining importance of terrestrial The Serbian constitution protects freedom Zoran Sekulić, owner and chief executive of broadcasting licenses, panelist Slobodan Kremenjak, of speech and the free flow of ideas and the FoNet News Agency, disagreed. He said the a lawyer in Belgrade, wondered if Serbia still needs information. The existing laws on the media government has made a show of taking these issues it. were passed in 2014, and some panelists said seriously without actually addressing them, noting But Tamara Skrozza, a journalist with Vreme they were overdue for amendment. All panelists the journalists’ association’s still-unmet demands magazine, noted that there had been signs of life agreed, however, that the laws are often and the worsening assessments of the country’s from REM last year. She recalled that one REM selectively applied and regulations ignored. For media climate by international observers. Sekulić member openly violated the regulator’s rules on instance, the government is almost four years said the government had reactivated a working impartiality by criticizing opposition politicians and behind a second legal deadline—the first deadline group on journalists’ safety just before the European by defending the legality of an advertisement for was in 2005—to privatize the state-run Tanjug Commission released its annual