{"id":28416,"date":"2020-11-04T19:37:32","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T17:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/?p=28416"},"modified":"2021-11-17T11:07:10","modified_gmt":"2021-11-17T09:07:10","slug":"rem-report-creates-misleading-image-of-progressives-and-oppositions-media-presence-in-election-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/rem-report-creates-misleading-image-of-progressives-and-oppositions-media-presence-in-election-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"REM Report Creates Misleading Image of Progressives\u2019 and Opposition\u2019s Media Presence in Election Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

The final report<\/a> on media reporting during this year\u2019s election campaign was published on the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media <\/em>(REM) website on Monday. According to the report, in the period from March 4 to 15 and from May 11 to June 18, the Serbian Progressive Party\u2019s <\/em>(SNS) share of programming content (except advertising) was 10.6% (around 68 hours), while the share of the opposition Alliance for Serbia<\/em> (SZS), which boycotted the election, was 8.1% (around 52 hours).<\/p>

Based on this, one might draw the conclusion that the authorities and the opposition were given approximately the same amount of time in the media which REM monitored during the election.<\/p>

However, an analysis conducted by the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia <\/em>(CINS) shows that the difference between the authorities and the opposition was reduced through a change in the way this regulatory body presents data.<\/p>

Thus, for the first time since the start of monitoring, the total election campaign time also included the appearances of analysts in the media, but also of representatives of the institutions that carry out the election procedure, such as the Republic Electoral Commission, <\/em>investigative media, non-governmental organizations and others whom REM marked as \u201cother participants in the campaign.\u201d<\/p>

Apart from televisions with a nationwide broadcasting license and public services, the total time also included the cable channels N1, <\/em>which is a news channel, and Nova S. <\/em>The extent to which N1 <\/em>and Nova S <\/em>change the picture is illustrated by the fact that, according to the report, these two TV stations broadcast around 287 hours of election campaign programming, which equals almost half of the total programming broadcast by all 12 media outlets monitored by REM. Serbian Progressive Party<\/em> (SNS) representatives, the report says, refused to appear on certain shows on N1 <\/em>because they did not want to engage in a dialogue with the boycotting parties.<\/p>

REM also included the public radio services Radio Belgrade 1 <\/em>and Radio Novi Sad 1 <\/em>in the total time. This was the first time those two radio stations ended up in REM\u2019s table presenting the total time, even though they were part of the monitoring in 2014 and 2016, as well as in the report which CINS has already written about<\/a>.<\/p>

If, like in previous years, the total election campaign time included only national free-to-air broadcasters and public services \u2013 channels 1 and 2 of the Radio Television of Serbia <\/em>(RTS) and the Radio Television of Vojvodina <\/em>(RTV) \u2013 and if the time given to analysts and to those REM labels as other participants in the campaign was not included, the result would be very different. Based on that calculation, the Serbian Progressive Party\u2019s <\/em>(SNS) share of the election campaign programming was 25.59% (more than 51 hours), while the share of the Alliance for Serbia <\/em>(SZS) was 2.34% (just over five hours).<\/p>