Employees from Nova.rs, N1, TV Nova, Danas, Radar, and Forbes Serbia held a joint protest rally on Tuesday evening outside the Nova.rs headquarters in New Belgrade.
Oglas
The staff organized the demonstration as a stand to preserve independent journalism and protect these media outlets as the audience knows them.
The movement also drew solidarity from regional colleagues, with journalist unions and media associations in Croatia, Slovenia, and Montenegro organizing simultaneous solidarity rallies in Podgorica, Zagreb, and Ljubljana.
The Belgrade rally, which saw members of the public turn out to offer their support, opened with a welcoming address by Vojislav Milovancevic, executive editor of the Nova.rs portal. He began by thanking everyone who came out to back the staff of Nova, N1, Danas, Radar, and Forbes Serbia.
“I want to thank you for turning out in such numbers to support our outlets, which have come under immense pressure recently. We are not giving up - we owe it to ourselves, to the profession we chose, but above all, to all of you who have watched us, read us, and trusted us for years,” Milovancevic said.
Slobodan Georgiev, news editor at Nova TV, noted that he and his colleagues often disagree on things but that it is vital to stand united on one core issue – “and that is ensuring the position of journalists and journalism in Serbia remains significant, and that we must defend it.”
“We have witnessed 14 years of attempts to shut down independent media in Serbia - in two ways: either by subjugating them or by driving us out entirely. However, I believe they have failed in both objectives,” Georgiev said.
“My message to the people who have bought, or are still buying, the media outlets we work for is this: you can buy media outlets, but you can’t buy the truth,” he concluded.
The crowd was also addressed by Danas journalist Ugljesa Bokic, Nova daily editor Ranko Pivljanin, N1 journalist Mladen Savatovic, Forbes Serbia editor Ivan Radak, and Radar weekly journalist Milan Radonjic.
Ratko Femic, deputy editor-in-chief of the Nova.rs portal, told the crowd that Nova.rs has not been seized yet.
“Do you know who we have to thank for that? You - our readers, our colleagues, the people, and the friends who stood by us. Our collective voice echoes much further than some had anticipated,” Femic said.
However, Femic warned that the danger has not passed.
“If they strip us of our right to edit our own portal, we will find a way to let you know. We will not allow anyone to serve you propaganda under our name, so that on October 25 (election day) you open Nova.rs thinking you are reading us, only to be fed something entirely different,” Femic cautioned.
During his speech, he cited N1’s editorial refusal to host Aleksandar Vucic as a prime example of journalistic integrity.
Closing his address, Femic declared: “Nova.rs is not just an internet address, it is the people who have earned your trust - and that trust is not for sale.”
Journalists and staff at the Nova.rs portal organized a protest outside their offices last week, which drew widespread support from fellow journalists, members of the public, athletes, artists, and students.
The protest was triggered after new management issued a 48-hour ultimatum, forcing the staff to either accept the newly appointed editor-in-chief, Marko Stjepanovic - whom the newsroom has rejected - or take a severance package and quit.
The latest information obtained by the Nova.rs portal is an unofficial confirmation from multiple mutually independent sources that the new management could drastically restrict access to the site’s content management system.
According to these sources, the plan would strip journalists and current editors of their ability to publish articles independently, centralizing publishing rights exclusively under editors brought in by the new management team.
Nova.rs editors and staff are deeply alarmed by the logistics of this move, noting that such system restrictions would require the direct cooperation of United Cloud. United Cloud is the United Group subsidiary tasked with maintaining the content management system, giving them full access to all our accounts.
This coordination effectively makes the management teams at United Cloud and United Group directly complicit in stifling press freedom - just days before the upcoming elections in Serbia.
Teme