REM Rejects All 13 Proposals to Open Cases Against Media
Rodoljub Sabic says Council members from the ruling side voted no at an electronic session, despite the proposals coming from REM's own expert service.
The Council of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM) rejected all 13 proposals to open inquiry proceedings against media outlets on Friday, October 16, Council member Rodoljub Sabic announced. N1, Insajder and Danas carried his written statement on October 17.
How did the REM electronic session go?
Council President Stevica Smederevac scheduled the session as an electronic one. The agenda held 13 proposals to open inquiry proceedings against media suspected of violating the Law on Electronic Media. The proposals were submitted by REM’s Monitoring and Analysis Service after it analyzed the broadcast programming.
Sabic says in his statement that the independent Council members voted to open proceedings, while the representatives of the authorities voted against in every case. By his account, the outcome was the same for all 13 outlets:
“Once again the representatives of the authorities voted against opening inquiry proceedings against all 13 media outlets, against every one of them for which documented and well-argued complaints had been filed. Unfortunately, this is nothing unusual, but rather a habit when it comes to media that broadcast markedly pro-government programming.”
Sabic added that the representatives of the authorities, in his view, “once again confirmed their complete unwillingness” to contribute to REM’s independent work and to defend the standards set by law. He put the name of the session in quotation marks as well, describing it as an “electronic session far from the eyes of the public”.
What does Sabic say about the expert service’s findings?
The heaviest part of the statement concerns how the service that prepared the proposals was treated. Sabic claims that in no case where the service found a violation of the law or of a rulebook and proposed proceedings did a Council member from the ruling side vote to open them. He said:
“The representatives of the authorities also voted against all the findings of their own Expert Service (of REM). They voted against the opinion that the Monitoring and Analysis Service gave, and in which, after analyzing the disputed broadcast material, it argued for opening inquiry proceedings.”
He closed the statement with an assessment of the vote, noting that he does not know who is behind it:
“Regardless of what or who stands behind this vote, such an arrogant, generally contemptuous and ignorant attitude toward the positions not only of other Council members but also of the Expert Service, whose basic task is to analyze and assess the broadcast programming, is a disgrace and a case that is most likely without precedent on an international, global scale.”
This is Sabic’s own assessment, not a finding of REM or any other institution. The response of the Council members from the ruling side is not contained in his statement, and the outlets that carried it do not give one.
What do the available sources not say?
The statement does not name the 13 media outlets, the individual violations the service identified, or the number of votes for and against in each case. For that reason it is not possible to tell from it which broadcasters and which programs the proposals concern.
Sabic describes the outcome as a repeat, with the words “once again”, and N1 says in its headline that the representatives of the authorities “again” did not vote for proceedings. Two days earlier, on October 14, the Council decided not to penalize RTS, RTV, B92, Pink, Prva and K1 over pre-election segments featuring children.
