Mirković: Project Funding for Media Is Dead, Government Finances Pro-Government Outlets

“Project-based media funding has been buried.” That is how Saša Mirković, a representative of the Association of Independent Electronic Media, describes this year’s outcome in Serbia.

Speaking to FoNet for the Kiosk program, Mirković said the system introduced in its original form in 2015 had suffered a fiasco. In his assessment, there is no sign that the state wants to finance the public interest in the media. Instead, he said, authorities at every level are using project funding to refinance pro-government outlets and GONGO organizations that serve to extract public money.

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Project-based media funding has been buried in its original form since 2015.

Critical media, he said, received nothing or far smaller amounts. Mirković linked the outcome to the policy of the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications, headed by Boris Bratina. He described Bratina as someone who has repeatedly shown himself to be hostile to the media and merely carrying out decisions imposed from the top of the state.

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What also marked this year was the emergence of the policy pursued by the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications, headed by Boris Bratina, who has repeatedly shown himself to be someone hostile to the media and merely carrying out what has been imposed from the top of the state, and we all know who makes the decisions and has the final say in this country, including when the media are concerned.

Mirković also alleged that authorities openly intend to violate the law through the funding process. He referred to “score engineering,” saying officials first influence the number of points commission members can award and then shape the selection and support of projects that do not represent the public interest. He called the funding of media that reported professionally on student and civic protests since Nov. 1, 2024, a form of retaliation.

He said the Unified Information System had created additional problems. Documents can be backdated, disappear or become very difficult to locate, he said, meaning the platform has not improved access to information, transparency or inclusion. Mirković added that relevant journalism and media associations received no funding this year, while a new association bringing together what he called the “cream of tabloid journalism” received money without difficulty. He attributed the broader decline to a process begun under former Information Minister Dejan Ristić, whom he identified as an early architect of the system’s deterioration.

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This year, it became especially clear that project funding was used as a form of retaliation against media outlets that had done their jobs professionally and reported on student and civic protests since Nov. 1, 2024.