May 3, 2017
World Press Freedom Day is marked around the world on 3rd May, but the latest 2016 report of Reporters Without Borders notes that press freedom is declining around the world, including in Serbia, which has slipped six places, compared to 2015, in the rankings of the 2017 World Press Freedom Index.
In its explanation, Reporters Without Borders states that media freedom in Serbia has been declining since Aleksandar Vučić became the country’s prime minister in 2014.
The Serbian media, according to the RWB report, “work under harsh financial and editorial pressure, and those that are most critical of the government are attacked publicly – the investigative media groups BIRN and CINS, daily Danas and weekly Vreme are often targeted”.
A similar situation is also cited in the new report of the Research Centre of the European Parliament – which found that media in the countries of the Western Balkans, including Serbia, are facing politicisation, issues in law enforcement and intimidation of journalists, as well as an increase in self-censorship.
