The media center filed a complaint because the Parliamentary channel broadcast a report from the NSD Assembly

The media center submitted a complaint to the ombudsman of the national public broadcaster RTCG and the Electronic Media Agency because TVCG, contrary to its Program Production Plan for 2024, the Rulebook on Program Principles and Professional Standards, the Law on the National Public Broadcaster RTCG, the Law on Electronic Media, the Rulebook on Program standards in the electronic media and the RTCG Statute, broadcast on the Parliamentary channel an extensive report from the fourth regular Assembly of the New Serbian Democracy, held on February 25, 2024.

The Media Center said that in the Program Production Plan for 2024, it is not written anywhere that the Parliamentary Channel will report on party meetings, and that this type of reporting does not fit into one of the goals marked in the Rulebook on Program Principles and Professional Standards. , which reads: "c) timely, comprehensive, objective, balanced and credible processing of events in Montenegro, the region and beyond, supporting a fair and constructive dialogue at the local, regional and national level".

"The aforementioned Rulebook refers to the Law on Electronic Media, Article 74 point 7, and the Law on the Election of Councilors and Members of Parliament, Article 51, and says that "political propaganda is not allowed in RTCG programs, except during the pre-election campaign". Reporting from the regular Assembly of the New Serbian Democracy falls, in the opinion of the Media Center, into political propaganda, and not into "comprehensive, objective, balanced" journalistic reporting. In the Rulebook of the Agency for of the electronic media on program standards in the electronic media, it says that "the interests of one political party or any group or individual must not be promoted in a tendentious way with program contents...", and reporting on the NSD Assembly is an illustrative example of such reporting, said the director of the Media Center, Goran Đurović.

He adds that the Parliamentary channel should monitor the work of parliamentary bodies, not parties that have their meetings and are not of public interest, and that RTCG must have the same attitude towards all political parties, which implies that short news can be given from their meetings in informative programs, but not reports that represent political propaganda outside the electoral process.

"This is all the more so because non-parliamentary political parties (around 50 parties that are not part of the Assembly) are discriminated against in such a way that their congresses are not broadcast on the parliamentary channel. It cannot be justified that the Parliamentary Channel will broadcast reports from the congresses of other political parties because that's how they break the law," said Đurović.

He points out that the Law on National Public Broadcaster RTCG clearly stipulates when political parties are presented to the public in RTCG programs:

"During the pre-election campaign, in accordance with special rules, they ensure equal representation of political parties, coalitions and individuals".

"Article 4 of the RTCG statute stipulates: "No political propaganda is allowed in RTCG programs, except during the election campaign. No religious propaganda is allowed in RTCG programs." Since there is no pre-election campaign, there is no professional justification for this kind of reporting, nor is there any basis in laws and legal acts of a lower order, and we believe that the Agency for Electronic Media must sanction this kind of behavior," Đurović concluded.