On June 10, the Radio and Television Council of Montenegro (RTCG) appointed Danijela Popović as its first ombudsman. RTCG thereby follows the steps of other media in Montenegro, such as the daily newspapers "Vijesti" and "Dan", Television Vijesti and the weekly "Monitor", which have had a similar principle of self-regulation since 2013.
In addition to the ombudsman institution, various local and national media outlets have been members of the Media Council for Self-Regulation (MSS), a collective self-regulatory body, since 2012.
The fact that self-regulation is divided into different bodies reflects the polarization of the media community in Montenegro.
Although experts and media employees are divided on the issue of uniting under the same umbrella, they agree that more efforts should be made to raise professional and ethical standards in the media.
"Apart from very rare exceptions, there is no self-regulation at all, but no regulation either - so most of the media, especially portals, write whatever they want without any responsibility - insulting people, inciting them, spreading hatred towards those who think differently," said Mila Radulović. , president of the Association of Professional Journalists (DNP).
"And she looks like it is not known whether our goal is freedom of expression or sowing hatred," she added.
Distrust in MSS
According to Reporters Without Borders' index of media freedom in the world, this year, Montenegro was in 104th place out of 180 countries, which is the worst result among the countries of the Western Balkans.
The report states that the authorities do not sufficiently protect journalists, and that known cases of physical attacks remain unsolved.
According to the Law on Media, the media can form a collective external self-regulatory body, and each media can form an internal self-regulatory body.
Ranko Vujović, executive secretary of the MSS, claims that a single regulatory body would help improve the situation in the media in Montenegro and increase the level of professionalism.
"If a large part of the media community supported the efforts of more professional and ethical journalism, it would certainly have an effect on all media", said Vujović, adding that the joint body would also lead to uniform application of the Code of Journalists and its interpretation.
"Joint self-regulation can greatly improve the status of the media and their position in society," he added.
However, not everyone agrees that collective association is the best way, especially in light of the tense and polarized media scene in Montenegro.
Paula Petričević, the ombudsman of the daily newspaper "Vijesti" and the weekly "Monitor", believes that the idea of a single regulatory body is not realistic in Montenegro.
"At this moment and under the conditions of deepened mistrust, strong polarization of the media scene, politicized public service, and the instrumentalization and abuse of the media, which are established non-transparently and according to daily political needs, I think that the idea of a single self-regulatory body has no basis in reality." Petričević said.
The ombudsman of the daily "Dan" Ilija Jovićević was even more direct in rejecting the idea of a single self-regulation. He said that such a body "would not bring any improvement at all to the media scene of Montenegro".
"No other body as an ombudsman can better and more completely meet the needs and challenges of correctly understood self-regulation in modern journalism," Jovićević said.
The fact that for years the MSS acted on complaints about content published in the media, which were not members of that body, had an even greater distrust in the single self-regulatory body. That practice stopped in 2017, when the MSS changed its statute.
Director of the Media Association of Southeast Europe (MAJE), Vuk Maraš, said that there is deep distrust in the media community in Montenegro.
"Which is extremely biased, which essentially aimed at re-educating the professional media, not self-regulation of its own members and their way of reporting", said Maraš, stating that it gathered media that were close to the current authorities in Montenegro.
Although self-regulation is important, it is not an essential condition for the professionalization of the media, but a fine-tuning system that relies on already achieved and achieved professional and ethical standards in work," said Petričević.
According to him, instead of establishing the preconditions for collective self-regulation, the former government implemented changes to the Law on Media and thereby "almost manipulated that only collective self-regulatory body, for the reason that through the Fund for Media Pluralism, it ensured that collective self-regulatory bodies could be financed registered three or more years ago".
"Which shows that the goal is to protect that one, which was made as such in a very one-sided, non-objective way and by the media with a very pro-government editorial policy at that moment," Maraš said.
This, he points out, is also the reason why professional media in Montenegro were forced to create their own internal self-regulatory mechanisms, such as ombudsmen.
"It is another burden that has recently fallen on the professional media," he said.
Different procedures, but the Code of Journalists is one
Although they act according to different statutes (MSS) or rules of procedure ("Vijesti", "Dan", "Monitor"), both the Media Council for Self-Regulation and the media ombudsmen decide according to the same code - the Code of Journalists of Montenegro.
The most frequent violations of the Code, according to "Vijesti" interlocutors, refer to accurate, objective and impartial reporting.
While the Media Council for Self-Regulation received complaints about the work of all media, the number of complaints, according to the executive secretary of the MSS, Ranko Vujović, was up to 40 per year, only to drop to around 30 after they decided to only receive complaints about the work of the media who are their members.
When they interrupted their work in 2018 and 2019 due to a lack of funding, this, he said, also affected the work of the Media Council for Self-Regulation, i.e. the number of complaints they receive.
"Thus, last year we received only five complaints. Out of those five complaints, in three cases the Complaints Commission found a violation of the Code of Journalists", said the executive secretary of the MSS.
In the last two and a half years, Ombudsman Paula Petričević has received over 40 complaints, of which nine have been sent since the beginning of 2021, three have been rejected, while the opinion in two cases has not yet been reached.
Since 2019, the "Dana" ombudsman has received a total of 12 complaints, of which, according to Jovićević, three were formally incorrect. He also pointed out that there were cases where one person filed multiple complaints.
"In all these cases, after duly received statements from the editors of 'Dana' or the journalists, the ombudsman assessed that there was no violation of the Code of Journalists of Montenegro," said Jovićević.
DPN President Mila Radulović is of the opinion that the current media scene in Montenegro is a picture of a deeply divided and politically polarized society.
"It can hardly be worse than this," she said.
Radulović said that "nobody cares when the ombudsman finds a violation of the Code".
"If self-regulation really came to life and if the media were mentioned more often for violating the Code, I believe things would go better. But that requires the objectivity of the self-regulator...", she said.
Petričević, however, states that although self-regulation is important, it is not an essential condition for media professionalization.
"It represents a fine-tuning system that relies on already achieved and achieved professional and ethical standards in work," she said.
According to her, the first condition is an adequate legal framework and adequately educated, trained and coordinated journalists who work freely and responsibly in the interest of the public, without orders from particular interests, censorship or self-censorship.
"Self-regulation then comes as an advanced system of protection and improvement of professional and ethical standards and is as effective as it is used and as much as readers, on the one hand, and journalists, on the other hand, have confidence in the self-regulatory body, that is, its fairness and impartiality in decision-making", Petričević concluded.
Self-regulation in the Balkans
Unlike most countries in the region, the media ombudsman institution plays an important role in Montenegro in efforts to strengthen ethical and professional standards in journalism.
The Belgrade Press Council told "Vijesta" that they are not aware of any media having its own ombudsman, and the same answer came from the Pristina Press Council.
The Skopje Council for Media Ethics (SEMM) said that despite the recommendation to introduce an editorial ombudsman in all newsrooms, for now this concept is not working.
"We as an organization, together with the Association of Journalists, are active supporters of the idea of introducing self-regulatory mechanisms in newsrooms, that is, the existence of an ombudsman. We believe that this is the best approach for the professionalization of work and respect for ethical standards in media reporting," said SEMM to "Vijesta".
There is also an international organization of newspaper ombudsmen (ONO), whose members include representatives from a large number of EU member states, such as Germany, Belgium, the Czech Republic... There is an ombudsman in Slovenian Radio and Television.
The Media Council for Self-Regulation and the self-regulatory bodies of the countries of the region, except for Albania, are members of the Alliance of Independent Press Councils of Europe (AIPCE).
This article was realized within the project "Digital Media in the New Age: The Path to Self-Regulation, Ethics and Independence", implemented by the Albanian Helsinki Committee (AHC), and financially supported by the Government of the Netherlands.
This article is the property of the author and does not reflect the views of AHC or the Government of the Netherlands.
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