“The latest” report on media freedom in Serbia

Two nights ago, Tanjug has released the news on the advancement of Serbia on the “just published” list of the Reporters without Borders, regarding the state of media freedom in 180 countries. The second news programme of RTS, Blic, Politika, B92… all duly broadcasted exactly the same information.

Good news for Serbia? Not really. The “just published” list was in fact, a year old.

“According to the just published list comprising of 180 countries, ranked in line with the degree of freedom of press for 2014, Serbia holds the 54^th place, nine places up, compared to the previous year”, announced the State News Agency – Tanjug, two nights ago, on January 11.

Numerous media in Serbia, among which is the Radio-Television of Serbia, in its second news programme “Dnevnik”, a prime-time information show, Politika, Blic and B92, have all broadcasted the news of Serbia’s progress in freedom of media, referring to Tanjug as its source.

This list, however, was not “just published”. The subject report was in fact, a year old, which can be found on the website of the Reporters without Borders since January 31, 2014 (a date clearly visible in the heading of this document).

The report on media freedom is titled “World Press Freedom Index 2014″ and encompasses events from the previous years, 2013 (and on several occasions 2012 as well), which is indicated in even 72 places of the report.

Numerous media in Serbia have broadcasted an almost identical text on the advancement of Serbia in the field of media freedom, almost a year ago – which is completely understandable, bearing in mind that they have written it based on the corresponding report. Thus, on February 12, 2014, Blic had published the news of the Beta News Agency, on how Serbia has made a step up in the field of media freedom. Blic was then referring to a report about which it would again write on January 11, 2015.