Vujović: Disinformation poisons the public, unregistered media will not be able to receive state money

The fact that there were as many as nine attacks on journalists during the first four months of this year is worrying, but, on the other hand, the 40th place on the list of 180 countries in terms of media freedom is a good position and we cannot be dissatisfied, she said in "Colors of the Morning". on TV Vijesti Minister of Culture and Media Tamara Vujović.

"We are a country burdened by the unsolved murder of the editor-in-chief of 'Dana', Duško Jovanović, and that is what will always drag us to the bottom of that list. somewhere reminds us that we have not finished our work, but we have to look at things realistically and in a global context to say that Montenegro is really not in a bad place when it comes to the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index," she said.

Vujović assesses that the Government has an open relationship with the media, but that there is room for improvement.

"What should distinguish every politician is an increased tolerance for a greater number of questions, research, information regarding him and all that are decisions," she said.

Vujović pointed out that what poisons the Montenegrin public is a large percentage of disinformation and fake news that comes mainly from portals and social media, which she will try to solve by forming a network to fight against disinformation.

"We tried to solve the issue of portals, especially unregistered ones, for which we do not know who is the founder or who is the editor-in-chief. We put a clause in the new laws that they will not be able to be established, that is, they will exist in our media sphere, but if they are not in the records, if they don't have all the data, they will give us the possibility to punish them financially," she said and added that unregistered media will not be able to receive state money.

The new set of media laws, whose harmonization is underway, will define the term journalist and provide him with the opportunity to participate in the selection of editors and to be part of the process of changing ownership.