Mount Witch Hunt For B92

Belgrade, July 7, 2005 – The Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) protests most strongly at the witch hunt being conducted by daily tabloids Srpski Nacional and Kurir for ANEM member RTV B92 and journalists Brankica Stankovic, the editor of B92's investigative program Insider.

In a program broadcast on July 4, the Insider crew examined the pattern by which a public figure is destroyed in the media and the ground prepared for a public lynching. We are now seeing an attempt to apply this same pattern to Stankovic herself and to discredit Radio Television B92.

Thus Kurir, in its July 6 edition, in an article by Dragan J. Vucicevic, who had himself taken part in the Insider program broadcast two days earlier, condemns B92 for daring to talk about media witch hunts. He accuses B92 of “Goebbels-like totalitarian propaganda, manipulation and indoctrination,” as well as “malicious editing and the worst kind of frame-up”. He also labels Brankica Stankovic “a liar, a manipulator and a fraudster”.

Srpski Nacional joined the fray, also in its July 6 issue, coming up with a fantastic story about how TV B92 and Insider are actually a smokescreen for sexual orgies. This is presumably intended to indicate that any findings which this program and this station come to, and any messages they convey, are not particularly important or credible.

ANEM calls on the democratic public and especially all media companies and journalism associations to react sharply to articles which breach professional ethics and journalist codices. These articles are aimed at a public lynching of people who think differently and ultimately at stifling public debate about the abuse of the media and the profession of journalism. Such abuses happen far too often in this society.

We are seeing that every attempt to examine the events of the recent past, whether they be the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic or the crimes committed during the wars of the last decade, results in the same, undoubtedly orchestrated, attacks. ANEM believes that the pattern of media outlets acting as branch offices of various political, quasi-political and criminalised centres of power function must be dismantled and the lethal influence of these on media and society brought to an end. This task should be a priority for journalists, the media and professional associations.

Slobodan Stojsic,
Chairman of ANEM Managing Board