{"id":25483,"date":"2020-03-22T20:18:06","date_gmt":"2020-03-22T18:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/?p=25483"},"modified":"2020-06-19T15:58:39","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T13:58:39","slug":"coronavirus-as-excuse-for-discriminating-against-media-cins-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/coronavirus-as-excuse-for-discriminating-against-media-cins-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus as Excuse for Discriminating Against Media \u2013 CINS Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the evening on March 21, our journalist showed up at the Palace of Serbia<\/em> about ten minutes before the start of President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107<\/strong>\u2019s press conference scheduled for 6 p.m.<\/p>

She was met at the entrance by a doorman who, after she introduced herself and said she was from CINS, conveyed the information to someone over a Motorola walkie-talkie. However, instead of letting her attend the press conference, the doorman just waved his hand and told her she couldn\u2019t go in. When she asked him why, the doorman replied: \u201cI don\u2019t have to explain anything to you.\u201d<\/p>

The CINS journalist asked several times that her identity and whether she had a press pass be checked, but security refused to do that, too. A colleague from Happy TV<\/em> was behind her and he entered without any trouble.<\/p>

We then requested an explanation from Suzana Vasiljevi\u0107<\/strong>, President Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s media advisor.<\/p>

In a written reply, Vasiljevi\u0107 told us that for the sake of protecting media crews, besides other measures such as distributing protective masks and gloves, \u201cwe have reduced the number of those present at the president\u2019s press conferences by dividing the media into electronic (televisions and agencies) and print media and portals (others), so as to respect the prescribed distance between people indoors.\u201d According to her, the media are invited by messages and announcements on websites, with a note on which group of media is invited and with a request that the crews be the smallest possible.<\/p>

\u201cI apologize to CINS if there was indeed inappropriate behavior on the part of the officer at the entrance to the Palace, but I hope you understand that in this situation, which the country is currently in, there is a lot of pressure on the security services, to primarily protect the health of every citizen.\u201d<\/p>

So, what is the problem here?<\/h2>

The problem is that the current situation which the entire country is in is being used to additionally discriminate against certain media.<\/p>

On March 21, CINS published a new article on the number and condition of medical ventilators in health care institutions<\/a> in Serbia. According to the research, nearly two thirds of hospitals, health care centers, institutes and clinics declined to provide information on a matter of great public interest, especially at a time when, as the president\u2019s advisor herself would say, \u201cthere is a dangerous virus that takes numerous lives on a daily basis.\u201d<\/p>

Many institutions directed us toward those above them \u2013 the Ministry of Health<\/em> or the Provincial Secretariat for Health Care<\/em>. None of those two institutions answered our questions.<\/p>

We are not the only ones. A few days ago, journalists from Ni\u0161 sent an appeal to Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107 and Prime Minister Ana Brnabi\u0107<\/strong>, asking that information not be hidden<\/a> and that the competent services be forced to do their job and inform the citizens. The appeal is a consequence of the fact that, as colleagues from the online daily Ju\u017ene Vesti<\/em> reported, the Clinical Center in Ni\u0161 is not publicizing data on the number of coronavirus cases in the city, while the authorities are not answering questions about that.<\/p>

Unfortunately, we are in a situation where press conferences are the only opportunity for us to ask our questions and sub-questions \u2013 whether someone likes them or not.<\/p>

However, apparently not even that will be easy anymore. Just a day before our journalist was banned from entering the Palace of Serbia<\/em>, at a press conference held by Prime Minister Ana Brnabi\u0107 (alongside Health Minister Zlatibor Lon\u010dar<\/strong>), only one question was allowed. And the Serbian Broadcasting Corporation<\/em> was chosen to ask that question.<\/p>

Representatives of the authorities must be aware that, especially in this situation where there is a serious threat to the health of all of us, timely and accurate information is most important. And we cannot get it if the ones in charge are silent.<\/p>

They are obligated to give all journalists \u2013 equally \u2013 an opportunity to ask, even call things into question, rather than use the virus as an excuse to discriminate against certain media.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CINS) journalist was not allowed to attend a press conference held by Serbian President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107 late on March 21. The reason \u2013 due to coronavirus, the conference was only for televisions and news agencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1123,"featured_media":25486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1767,1671,1497],"tags":[1620,1765,1766,1778,1779],"class_list":["post-25483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid-19-en","category-investigative-journalism","category-news","tag-aleksandar-vucic-en","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19-en","tag-editors-comment","tag-the-media","ciTrackContent"],"acf":[],"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/editors-comment.png","author_additional":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25483"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25488,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25483\/revisions\/25488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}