The Ombudsman of Radio Television of Montenegro (RTCG) drew the attention of the Council to the fact that the editorial staff of the Public Service Portal has continuously failed to comply with Article 10 of the Rules of Procedure and has not responded within the prescribed five-day period.
In one of the opinions from April this year, the RTCG Ombudsman Ivan Ivanovic He recommended that the Council take concrete measures to ensure that the Portal's editorial staff complies with the provisions of the Rules and thereby strengthens trust in the Public Service's internal control system.
"The editor-in-chief's excuse that he is unable to respond within the deadline due to the volume of work is particularly unacceptable. Although it is clear that the Portal has a high work intensity and volume of information, this cannot be an excuse for disrespecting self-regulation," said Ivanović.
The non-governmental organization Media Center filed a complaint with the Ombudsman in February, claiming that the Portal violated professional standards by publishing an article dedicated to presenting data from a public opinion survey on citizens' trust in political parties.
"The publication included part of the data that corresponds to the parties in power, but did not, for example, include data on the individual strength of parties based on lower, more realistic turnout. If this data had been published, it would have been seen, for example, that DPS individually has the greatest support, that PES is the second most supported party, and that Democratic Montenegro has six percent support. The text only published information that corresponds to all parties in power," the Media Center claimed.
This organization assessed that by failing to publish full information, RTCG violated professional standards prescribed by the Rulebook on Professional Principles and Standards, which refers to credibility and fairness in reporting.
The Media Center assessed that the data from the survey could lead citizens to the wrong conclusion that the strength of Democratic Montenegro is greater than it is at the moment and that they have a larger share in the coalition with PES than they actually do.
The editorial staff of the RTCG portal said that they had taken over the information that was the subject of the complaint entirely from Television of Montenegro (TVCG) and that the content in question was related to regular public opinion surveys, as part of the show "Arguments".
"It is important to mention that TVCG is the source of information, not a portal. In addition, the claim that the information published is suitable for all parties in power is absolutely unfounded, because it is clear from what was published that the main opposition party DPS is at the very top when it comes to ratings. Therefore, the claims about the violation of the principles of credibility and fairness are unfounded. Regarding the method of research and presentation itself, the address is certainly TVCG, which certainly published the information," the editorial board wrote in its response.
The Ombudsman decided to partially accept the Media Center's complaint, considering that the Portal's failure was to clearly indicate the source of the information (TVCG program), and secondly, that it was not obliged to publish all relevant data from the available research.
On the other hand, the Ombudsman considers Media Center's claims about the intentional bias of the content to be unfounded, since there are segments in the publication that indicate citizens' dissatisfaction with the current government, including high support for the opposition DPS.
"The Ombudsman believes that in this particular case there was an omission in the transmission of information on the RTCG Portal. Nowhere in the disputed text is it indicated that the content was taken from the show 'Arguments' on the First Channel of TVCG... However, the Ombudsman also accepts the editorial board's argument that the published data does not exclusively benefit the government, because it can be concluded from them that the opposition DPS has a high rating, as well as that the majority of citizens express dissatisfaction with the direction of the state and the work of the Government. This indicates that the published content is not biased," Ivanović concludes in his opinion.
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