Censorship in Serbia
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Censorship in Serbia is prohibited by the Serbian constitution. Freedom of expression and of information are protected by international and national law, even if the guarantees enshrined in the laws are not coherently implemented. However, instances of censorship and self-censorship have been reported; as of 2015 Serbia was deemed "partly free" as judged by Freedom House[1] and ranked 59th out of 180 countries in the 2016 Press Freedom Index report compiled by Reporters Without Borders. According to the 2015 Freedom House report,[2] media outlets and journalists in Serbia have been subject to pressure from politicians and owners over editorial contents. Also, Serbian media have been heavily dependent on advertising contracts and government subsidies which make journalists and media outlets exposed to economic pressures, such as payment defaults, termination of contracts and the like.[1]
In Serbia the transition to democracy took place a decade later than in other Socialist countries. This delay is reflected in the media system whose modernization has been slow and contradictory. The mechanisms of political influence are therefore in place also in the post-Milošević even if they are of a different type if compared with the Socialist past and more sophisticated.[3] At the South-East Europe's first international conference on media freedom, organized in 2011 by the European Commission, journalist Gordana Igrić, founder of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) explained how political influence over the media and censorship has changed its nature as, if in the past for politicians was enough to pick up the phone, today media outlets are influenced by a pervasive ideological conditioning.[3]
As of 2015 Serbia was deemed "partly free" as judged by Freedom House[1] and ranked 59th out of 180 countries in the 2016 Press Freedom Index report compiled by Reporters Without Borders. According to the 2015 Freedom House report,[4] media outlets and journalists in Serbia have been subject to pressure from politicians and owners over editorial contents. Also, Serbian media have been heavily dependent on advertising contracts and government subsidies which make journalists and media outlets exposed to economic pressures, such as payment defaults, termination of contracts and the like.[1]
In 2020, Serbia ranked 93rd out of 180 countries on the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) media freedom ranking list. According to Aleksandar Vučić the lower ranking was "due to one case", alleging to journalist Milan Jovanović, whose house was burned down in 2018, "a case which has not been solved yet".[5]
In 2021, the Bureau for Social Investigation (BIRODI) reported that Serbian media had become "an industry of populism, promotional, propaganda and revenge tool for personal power", based on nine-years of research.[6]