Media founders should as soon as possible fulfill the provisions of the Law on Media, which stipulates that only media that are part of a self-regulatory body and entered in the records will be able to participate in the competition for the allocation of funds from the Fund for Media Pluralism.
This was announced by the Ministry of Culture and Media (MKM), stating that the competition will be announced soon.
The relevant minister, Tamara Vujović, reminded that the new Media Act had recently entered into force.
She stated that one of the numerous legal amendments also refers to the additional conditions that media founders must fulfill in order to apply for the allocation of funds from the Fund for Encouraging Media Pluralism and Diversity.
Vujović said that one of the new conditions refers to the fact that the founder of the media is a member of an external or has an established internal self-regulatory body.
"In this regard, we invite all media founders, who have not yet done so, to establish an internal self-regulatory body or establish a new one/join an existing external self-regulatory body," said Vujović.
Vujović said that those who do not fulfill this condition will not be able to participate in the public competition for the allocation of funds from the Fund.
For this reason, she invited everyone who has not yet done so to do so as soon as possible, since the announcement of a public competition for the allocation of funds from the Fund is expected in September or next month.
"The above also applies to linear AVM services, regardless of the fact that the distribution of funds from that sub-fund is carried out by the council of the regulatory body, that is, the Council of the Agency for Electronic Media", explained Vujović.
She emphasized that the entry into force of the new media law has the potential to strengthen democracy, improve the protection of journalists and ensure transparency, pluralism and responsibility in the media sector.
Vujović said that transparency, responsibility and media freedom are the basic pillars on which an informed society is based.
"When these values are protected by law and respected in practice, citizens can make informed decisions, participate in social processes and monitor the work of the government. Ultimately, the success of the new media laws will depend on their consistent application," said Vujović.
She said that the founders and owners of the media have a particularly important role in applying and respecting the new legal provisions.
"Their responsibility lies not only in managing the media as business entities, but also in preserving the public interest and adhering to professional and ethical standards," Vujović pointed out.
She stated that Article 11 of the Law on Media stipulates that the founder of the media or a person authorized by him must, within 30 days from the day of establishment of the media, submit an application for registration of the media in the records maintained by the Ministry of Interior.
"Along with the application referred to in paragraph 1 of this article, the media establishment act, the decision of the authority responsible for the registration of the media founder and the statute of the media founder must be submitted," said Vujović.
She said that according to the Law on Media, only registered media, which were not banned from broadcasting in the previous six months, nor were their founders convicted of spreading hatred, can access the Fund.
She said that with the new Law on Media, the provisions regulating the transparency of media financing from public revenues have been innovated and the media are obliged to respect them.
"Failure to comply with the legal provisions is punishable in accordance with the criminal provisions from articles 72-75 of the Law on Media," said Vujović.
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