MEETINGS ON THE POSITION AND CO-FINANCING OF THE LOCAL MEDIA HELD IN BUJANOVAC AND PRESEVO

Bujanovac, Presevo – The topic discussed at the meetings in Presevo and Bujanovac, which were organized by the Coordination Body of the Government of the Republic of Serbia for the Municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja, was the situation and co-financing of the local media.

The meeting was attended by the owners and representatives of the local electronic and print media, Internet portals, representatives of the Ministry of Culture and Information, State Secretary Nino Brajovic and civil servant Ivana Djuric, State Secretary of the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government Ivan Bosnjak, Assistant Director of the Coordination Body’s Office  for the Municipalities of Presevo , Bujanovac and Medvedja Tamara Milosevic Grbic, a representative of the media coalition Svetozar Rakovic, and a representative of the OSCE, in the capacity of an observer.

Discussed at the meetings were the upcoming calls for applications, the method of applying and the preparation of project proposals, which, as it was said, were usually of low quality, which was the reason why they were rejected by the commission. Mostly discussed were the problems related to the smooth functioning of the local media and their unenviable material position. When it comes to co-financing of the media, it was pointed out that 11 million and 700 thousand dinars had been earmarked from this year's budget of the municipality of Presevo, and 7 million   dinars from the one of the municipality of Bujanovac.  

Nino Brajovic, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Culture and Information, said that his colleagues working in multilingual media and in a multinational and multicultural environment expressed a high degree of tolerance and understanding. 

“What is positive about the difficult economic situation of the journalists and media is the good atmosphere prevailing among them. It gives me hope that the potential of the press will endure this difficult time. The Ministry of Culture has been trying to increases the amount earmarked for project co-financing of the media year in year out. Problems are caused by the fact that local communities, upon the change of the media laws, are not obliged to issue applications for co-financing of projects, nor set aside minimum funds for those purposes. The Information Office at the Ministry of Culture believes that regulations need to be changed and minimum funds ought to be provided to the local self-governments for project co-financing. We need to set the times when the republican, provincial and local self-governments’ calls for applications are issued every year, as well as to better normatively govern the operation of the commissions, which should be representative and top- quality and fairly allocate taxpayers' money to the media. We  need not talk about the importance of the media for the development of society and the local community. It is a good thing that we have a lot of portals, the television in both languages, but we do not have enough money to be able to meet the minimum for those media, "Mr. Brajovic said.

State Secretary of the Ministry of Culture and Information said that we should be satisfied with the amount earmarked for the media in Serbia this year.

“The amount is higher than the last year’s one and it amounts to 263 million dinars. The provincial and local calls for applications are to follow. The problem is that when we compare 2011 with the previous year, we realize that the local self-governments earmarked four times less money in 2016 than in 2011.The result is devastating, and I think that is why the local media are going through the greatest crisis in their recent history. That is what we need to rectify as soon as possible, "Mr. Brajovic said.

Source: BU Press and Coordination Body