July 15, 2019
The Press Council, a self-regulating body for print and online media, has issued five public warnings to pro-government portal epancevo.rs in response to a series of articles that include numerous accusations and insults directed against pancevo.city portal journalist Nenad Živković.
In a series of articles published on epancevo.rs, Živković is accused of being “a resource for settling Ustasha [WWII Croatian fascist movement] accounts with Serbia,” that he is “engaged to increase his destructive activism when Serbs suffer in Kosovo,” then of being “a fake journalist, professional opposition figure, promoter of violence, obsessive materialist, apprentice spy”…
The Press Council concluded that it is a “ call to lynching” for a person who has different political convictions than those represented by the portal’s editorial board, and that this is unacceptable for any editorial office from a professional and moral standpoint, but also very dangerous regarding the safety of journalist Nenad Živković”.
The epancevo.rs portal isn’t the only media outlet in Pančevo that’s leading a dirty campaign against this journalist, who also hails from Pančevo. Local state television and radio company RTV Pančevo received a public warning from the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM) in response to its negative campaign against him lasting several days. However, despite being sanctioned in this way, this media outlet continued its attacks.
RTV Pančevo and epancevo.rs are known for their blind loyalty to the local and national authorities, as well for receiving impressive sums of public money every year via contests for the co-financing of media projects.
