29. 03. 2014

VUKAŠIN OBRADOVIĆ RE-ELECTED AS NUNS PRESIDENT

29. 03. 2014 (Tanjug) - The current president of the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia Vukašin Obradović will perform this function in the next four years, the NUNS Assembly decided today.

As announced by NUNS, the Assembly elected a ten-member Executive Council consisting of Bojan Cvejić, Vesna Mališić, Danica Vučinić, Dragan Janjić, Željko Bodrožić, Isidora Sekulić, Jasmina Lukač, Jovana Gligorijević, Mijat Lakicević and Ratko Femić.

Members of the NUNS Supervisory Council are Vladimir Sudar, Duško Medić, Ljubomir Đordjević, Muharem Mutabdžija and Stojan Marković.

The NUNS Court of Honor members are Vlado Mareš, Draga Božinović, Mihajlo Kovač, Olivija Rusovac and Safeta Biševac.

NUNS President Vukašin Obradović reminded the Assembly that NUNS was founded 20 years ago with an idea for journalists to fight for their profession, media freedom, and a democratic society, and that now everyone witnesses that media are dominated by non-professionalism and self-censorship.

Obradović reminded of the most important NUNS activities in the past 20 years, mentioning the aid to media outlets which were penalized in the late 1990s by "Šešelj's and Vučić's" Law on Information, insistence on resolving the murders of (journalists) Dada Vujasinović, Slavko Ćuruvija and Milan Pantić, and initiating legal proceedings against warmongering journalists.

According to him, on 5 October 2000 NUNS was on the side of the new government, but they tried to control the media. Obradović noted that 14 years later it is evident that the period since 5 October can be called a time of unfulfilled expectations.

It turned out that those with whom we were on the same side did not share the same ideals of media freedom and now we have a situation that the state of journalism is being compared to 1990s, noted Obradović.

Journalists are scared, under great pressure, and underpaid, he explained, and the media outlets operate at the edge of economic viability and do not depend on the market, but rather on the state i.e. the government.

The media outlets are dominated by lack of professionalism and self-censorship, media freedoms are at the lowest level, and the pluralism of opinions is lower than in the times of Milosevic, said Obradovic.

According to him, in the last four years NUNS tried to oppose the deterioration of the profession into the dark of sensationalism, half-truths and tabloidization.

Journalism is no longer among the most respected professions, and citizens trust us ever less, warned Obradović and pointed out that failures to follow the standards and codes of the profession sometimes make one ashamed to be a journalist.

The most important task in the coming period for the Association is to confront the deterioration of the profession, said Obradovic and called on NUNS to take part in this endeavor.

In the past period, reminded Obradovic, we were active in advocating the implementation of the Media Strategy, adopted by the Government on 28 September 2011.

The Media Coalition, which was formed at the initiative of NUNS, said Obradovic, has tried, by joint effort, to pave the way for new media legislation in order to create conditions for uncontrolled work and development of media. The Media Coalition is satisfied that provisions on the withdrawal of the state from media ownership, transparency of ownership, prohibition of excessive media concentration, prohibition of direct budget financing, and the introduction of project financing on all levels were accepted, said Obradović.

The Serbian government, elected on July 2012, has embarked on drafting and adopting media laws, he said, noting that the Media Coalition used the European agenda as the strongest and the most convincing arguments.

We see that, despite repeated promises, the government of Ivica Dačić has not finished the job, said Obradović.

He said that NUNS also reacted to the atmosphere of hate speech, which was created by the ultra-right forces and that the Association wrote to the President Tomislav Nikolic and Prime Minister Dačić regarding this issue, but has received no response.

Obradović said that in the past four years of his presidency NUNS introduced free legal aid for its members, and that he is very proud of the work of the Center for Investigative Journalism (CINS).

He has the impression that the power of NUNS is inversely proportional to the activism of its members, and this is why he asked that members of the Association be much more engaged in the future.