Macedonian Reporter Targeted for Not Cheering Team

A news portal seen as close to the Macedonian ruling party has taken a well-known journalist to task for failing to show sufficient pride in the country's recent sporting success.

Citing remarks on his Facebook wall, Kurir published an article on Wednesday entitled “Euphoria Bothers Borjan Jovanovski” in which it claimed that the reporter was obviously "bothered" by the national team's success in the European Men's handball Championship.

“While the entire nation is united and celebrates the successes of our players… someone is obviously bothered by this euphoria”, the article said.
 
Jovanovski is something of a hate figure to officials of the ruling VMRO-DPMNE party of Nikola Gruevski.

He was the object of a personal attack from the Prime Minister last year. In an interview for MIA news agency, Gruevski accused him of working with the EU to denigrate the country.

After the premier's attack last year, the journalists union, the ZNM, reminded Gruevski that it was not his job to comment on the work of individual journalists.

Vesna Shopar, communications professor at the Macedonian Institute for Media, MIM, says he is clearly being targeted again.

“Anyone who speaks differently from the discourse dictated by the government is immediately put on the wall of shame,” she said.

This time the head of the ZNM, Naser Selmani, told Balkan Insight, “We will review this text and decide whether to react”.

Earlier this week there was another dispute concerning journalists when several sporting federations and fan clubs took offence at the allegedly unpatriotic remarks of journalist Branko Geroski.

In his Sunday column called “Let’s Cheer and Hate Each Other”, written for the Plusinfo news site, Geroski criticized Macedonian fans who chant offensive slogans about ethnic Albanians.

The country's Kick-Boxing Federation, Wrestling Federation and the fan club “Family Aerodrom” all issued statements urging an end to articles criticising Macedonian sports fans. “In these moments our hearts should beat as one,” the Family Aerodrom wrote.

Geroski, a seasoned journalist and editor, condemned the statements as an invocation to violence.

“The reaction from the Kick Boxing Federation is a direct threat to my personal safety as this federation is linked to the personal bodyguard of the Prime Minister," Geroski said.

Responding to Balkan Insight’s inquiry, the Kick-Boxing Federation on Wednesday said that their intentions were honest and that they had nothing more to add to their statement.

In a global media freedom ranking for 2011, published this week by the French-based watchdog Reporters Without Borders, Macedonia was ranked 94 out of 179 counties. This marks a drop of 26 places compared to 2010. The fall follows the closure of several key opposition media outlets last year.