SMCG: Media owners to be conscientious and start applying the law

The Media Union of Montenegro (SMCG) called on all Montenegrin media, "especially those who are dedicated to work in the public interest and feel responsible for the journalistic profession, the public and their employees", to start applying the newly adopted Media Law as soon as possible.

They published a statement regarding the application of that law and the situation in the daily newspaper "Pobjeda".

"Although the Law provides a six-month deadline for harmonizing lower legal acts with legal norms, and when media registration takes as long as nine months, we believe that responsible media should immediately notice the importance of the new rules and start applying them as soon as possible in order to, among other things, , raised their own quality to the highest possible level," states SMCG.

They say that one of the obligations that should be completed as soon as possible is the adoption of the Media Statute, which is provided for in Articles 10 and 11 of the Law on Media.

They point out that this is an innovation that the Media Union advocated, and that the purpose of adopting the Statute is greater and more precise regulation of the way newsrooms work, predictability in decision-making and the involvement of employees in decision-making that concern them, "which was completely absent in the previous period ".

"Now that we have managed to include the new institute in the Law, we expect the media to arrange the internal organization of the media as soon as possible and, for example, during the first election of the editor-in-chief and editor-in-chief, they consult the people from the newsroom to whom that person will be superior and with whom he will be in direct contact for at least the next four years. That person should have the support of the editorial office that he will manage, and our recommendation is that it should be at least two-thirds of the total number of employees, because only in this way can we expect normal interpersonal relations and respect for editorial policy. and the position of editor-in-chief. It is to be assumed that the editor-in-chief wants to be welcome in the editorial office whose work he is supposed to coordinate. there would have been resistance from half of the employees towards the new superior and a strike would not have been announced as the most drastic form of struggle for their rights," the SMCG press release points out.

They called on Montenegrin media owners to be conscientious and start implementing the Law, "but also to learn from other people's mistakes", because "the time of unprotected media workers whose only obligation is to carry out orders without question has passed".