Serbia Survey: Local Media Should Report Domestic News

Lashing rain and blustering winds failed to deter hundreds of Serbian residents from taking part in the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN’s street poll, entitled “Who cares about the media?” on Saturday.

Many citizens interviewed by BIRN expressed their wish to have local media reporting on issues affecting their everyday life, instead of focusing on larger, international issues relating to Serbia's EU progress and Kosovo tensions.

Almir Pruzljanin, a student from Novi Pazar, said there was a lack of coverage over topics affecting the youth.

"We have lots of students' actions but [the] local media are not interested in covering it and are instead focused on high politics only," Pruzljanin said.

A former journalist from the town of Uzice said that in the past, the local media used to create politics but now politics was the one creating the media content.

"The only way out from the media darkness is for media to report on politics always asking an extra question: how does it affect ordinary people," the former journalist explained.

Serbians were interviewed in six Serbian towns and the event was broadcast live via internet television where it was watched by thousands of viewers.

Kragujevac, Nis, Novi Sad, Vranje, Uzice and Novi Pazar were the locations of the street interviews.

The aim of the event was to try to improve communication between citizens and the media, thereby contributing to the creation of more high quality local media content.