Public hearing on RTS: public-service reform requires institutional and legal changes

Reforming Radio-Television of Serbia (RTS) requires concrete institutional and legal changes, as well as mechanisms guaranteeing the newsroom’s professional autonomy, sustainable financing and greater accountability to citizens — it was said today at the Media Hearing on the state and reform of the public service, held at Česim dom in Belgrade, Danas reports.

The hearing presented the experiences of RTS journalists and media workers, as well as analyses and recommendations for institutional, editorial and financial reform, announced the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS).

Radio Belgrade presenter Miša Stojiljković said that public service employees face daily censorship, adding that he himself was punished for six months with the threat of losing his job because he opposed censorship. “Those who work professionally and well are pushed to the background, some are threatened; colleagues from suitable media are being intensively brought in,” he said.

Director Ivan Pecikoza recounted that after eight years with author’s contracts, following the “Naš pRoTeSt” project in 2025, his editor was told to close the projects and the need for his engagement ended — just like for many colleagues, including editors.

NUNS jurist and researcher Marija Babić presented the recommendations adopted at the Citizens’ Assembly of May 24: citizens are not satisfied with RTS’s communication and demand feedback mechanisms and answers to their questions; RTS leaders’ mandates should be shorter; modernization and changes to the program scheme are needed.

Retired professor of the Faculty of Political Sciences, Rade Veljanovski, warned that it is an illusion to think something can change on the first day after political changes — everything must be done according to the law. Public services, according to him, should be a factor of cohesion, but instead they divide society and favor one side. The Media Strategy notes that the public service is in the hands of the government. He added that in the new law, the greatest work was done on financing, but the then-minister of information said there is nothing of the proposed solution, because the Ministry of Finance did not approve it — the directors of the public services agreed with this too.

Photo: RTS headquarters in Tašmajdan Park, Belgrade. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.