Media self-regulation is necessary, and in addition, journalists should be strengthened in order to regain the reputation they once had, because they are the pillar of professional reporting, it was assessed at the conference "Media horizons: How to achieve transparency, reliability and public interest?".
Serbian journalist Tamara Skroza, at the panel "Media and responsibility: Functional self-regulation to protect the public interest", said that the state of media responsibility in the region is devastating.
"First of all, because we are the periphery of a more developed world and everything that is bad there comes to us stronger and more problematic, because they have the means to fight against it," said Skroza.
As she said, in Serbia, due to the political environment, the media is polarized and divided into pro-regime and anti-regime.
"It affects the devastation of the profession, which can have, in the long run, dire consequences," Skroza pointed out.
She said that, in order to resist the pressures, journalists should be strengthened, who must be protectors of the public interest.
"Journalists should be empowered, told that they are the seventh force, regardless of the fact that they seem to be disenfranchised and have low salaries. Until journalists are strong, there is nothing of honor and professional standards," Skroza said.
She said that the main problem in Serbia is the editorial policy, citing the example of one group of media reporting on the tragedy in Novi Sad in one way, and another group in another way.
As Skroza stated, editorial policy affects professional standards.
She pointed out that she is very optimistic when it comes to self-regulation, while everything else regarding media policy does not inspire her confidence.
Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of Montenegro and professor of media law, Aneta Spaić, said that the opposite of self-regulation is the legislative framework and an attempt to regulate self-regulation by law.
She recalled that in the European Commission (EC) Report from last year, it was stated that weak self-regulation is a concern.
Spaić said that the EC Report this year says that there is fragmentation in self-regulation.
"What is worrying is that self-regulatory mechanisms are only being established for the sake of order, that we do not have serious criteria that will make it look like we have serious self-regulation," Spaić said.
As she said, it is important that the legislative framework implies progress and the need for the Montenegrin media scene to control itself.
Spaić pointed out that there is still disunity in the media scene, i.e. insufficient respect for professionalism and ethics.
She pointed out that the new Law on Media implies a significant number of promotional activities, which should increase awareness of the existence of self-regulation.
"It is a space for the Ministry of Culture and Media, but others are also invited, NGOs, self-regulatory bodies and various actors who can influence the spread of awareness about strengthening self-regulation," said Spaić.
She pointed out that self-regulation in the form of an ombudsman is not enough to make progress in self-regulation in Montenegro.
"The ministry has done its part, the next step is journalists, self-regulatory bodies, associations and associations," said Spaić.
The former executive director of the Press and Online Media Council from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Ljiljana Zurovac, said that establishing self-regulatory bodies and accepting self-regulation in the Balkans is extremely difficult.
"We started in 2005 and, despite all the efforts, successes and changes that have been made in the meantime, it cannot be said that it is at the level it should be," Zurovac said.
She said that they faced non-transparent media ownership in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
"It was not in the interest of the media owners in Bosnia and Herzegovina to make it a legal obligation to say who is the owner of the media, to display the imprint and for the citizens to know where and to whom they can turn," said Zurovac.
She pointed out that self-regulation is working, but that it is progressing very slowly.
"My goal was to put the slightly older elite aside and to invest in the knowledge and empowerment of the young generation, in the generation of journalists that will remain after us," said Zurovac.
She said that it is not good that all responsibility for what is not good in the media is placed on the self-regulatory body.
Zurovac emphasized that education is needed at all levels, and above all education of ordinary people.
According to her, the first problem for self-regulation in the region is self-sustainability, because each body in the region depends on foreign donations, unlike bodies in Europe that receive grants from the state or receive support from media owners.
The general secretary of the Society of Professional Journalists, Mila Radulović, said that there are several journalist associations that do not actually function, and the big problem is that colleagues are disappointed and no longer believe in the associations.
She pointed out that she hopes that Montenegro will not get into a situation where the law prescribes the obligation of self-regulation.
"The fact is that self-regulation in Montenegro does not work, that the ombudsmen are not strong enough," stated Radulović.
She pointed out that the number of self-regulatory bodies is increasing and that it will be seen from their work what the effect of all this will be and whether the media appointed ombudsmen and bodies because they care about having a self-regulatory body or "just to take money".
"I think it's the latter," added Radulović.
She assessed that it is crucial that journalists must strengthen themselves.
"Until journalists regain the reputation they once had, we are talking about self-regulation for nothing, because journalists are the pillar of professional reporting," Radulović pointed out.
During the panel "How to reliably measure viewership and listenership - good practices and lessons learned?", the head of the Department for Monitoring and Analysis of Media Content from the Croatian Electronic Media Agency, Stanislav Bender, said that no measurement method is perfect, because measurements they depend on many factors.
He explained that it is impossible to cover everything by measuring viewership and listening, so a sample is used.
"Any change, even an improvement in measurement technology, is likely to benefit some and disadvantage others," Bender said.
He said that's why Nielsen's introduction of well-established people-counting technology in local markets in the United States was met with fierce opposition from some broadcasters and public interest groups, who argued that the measure overlooked some minorities.
"However, it once caused hearings in the US Congress. We can only imagine the difficulties in introducing more radical changes in the measurement policy," Bender pointed out.
Head of the Sector for Strategic Planning and Copyrights in the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services of North Macedonia, Magdalena Dovleva Davidovska, said that until last year they had a legal solution in that country according to which the Agency measures viewership and listenership of broadcasters.
"That provision was deleted last year, after the experts of the European Union (EU) in the analysis concluded and advised the competent ministry to delete that competence of the Agency, because it is not the competence of media regulation," said Dovleva Davidovska.
She stressed that media regulators are not established to measure viewership and listenership.
"We are not a research agency, our knowledge and expertise is in the field of media regulation, not in the field of public opinion research," pointed out Dovleva Davidovska.
The founder of broadcasters Radio DRS and Radio City and president of the Association of Commercial Broadcasters of Montenegro (AKEM), Srđan Filipović, said that he is in the minority among radio broadcasters with the idea of organizing measurements.
Filipović said that eudication should be done before imaginary quality measurements.
"The vast majority of my colleagues do not know how to read measurements. The first thing we have as an obligation is education, to see how measurements are made", added Filipović.
He believes that it is not necessary to immediately go to individual measurements of viewership and listenership.
"With quality measurements, we can show that the radio is worth more," said Filipović.
As he assessed, a general research on the impact of radio should be conducted, without specifying which radio station was listened to, and in the next phase an individual research should be conducted.
Vladimir Raičević from IPSOS said that he is familiar with regional measurements of auditoriums, but that the biggest problem is the lack of money.
"We will always come back to the fact that we have no money, the people meter is expensive," Raičević said.
He pointed out that he does not know what the viewership data will do to AMU and the Ministry, but he knows what the media and advertisers, who live off of it, will do with it.
"We know that, on average, people spend about five hours a day watching television, and about four hours with radio and the Internet. Imagine how complicated it is to measure all that time," said Raičević.
He pointed out that it is expensive, but also necessary and necessary.
The conference, which was organized by AMU in cooperation with the OSCE Mission in Montenegro, was attended by a large number of representatives of the media and broadcasters, the academic community, non-governmental organizations, institutions, the diplomatic corps and political parties.
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