„Srpska Lista should read our text carefully before misinforming the public,“ the KoSSev editor, Tatjana Lazarevic, said in response to a press release issued by the party earlier today, in which it called out the KoSSev portal over „spreading disinformation about the arrival of buses from Serbia proper transporting citizens who were supposed to take part in the protests.“
„Untruths that are tendentiously published can have dire consequences and serve as an alibi and an occasion for the use of violence against our bare-handed people who peacefully, democratically express protest against the violation of fundamental rights,“ reads the statement issued by SL.
Once again, SL’s press release, which was published by some media outlets in the north, as well as the Beta news agency, was not submitted to KoSSev.
„We call on the citizens to show restraint and not fall for provocations and lies that are being shared at this sensitive moment,“ Srpska Lista concluded, as some north-based media report.
„It is not true that we published misinformation. Our news piece clearly states: Just before the start of the protest, at least ten buses with RKS, KM, CA, and BG registration plates came from the direction of Zvecan to Kosovska Mitrovica. Each bus was marked with an ordinal number. The largest ordinal number we saw was 30. Our readers also testified to this. The same news piece is still available on the site, therefore I call on the public and politicians to compare the information presented in the statement with the one shared by our portal,“ the editor-in-chief of the KoSSev portal, Tatjana Lazarevic, underlined.
„As far as ‘dire consequences’ are concerned, the risk of them occurring in this particular case is, therefore, the responsibility of SL for spreading misinformation concerning our portal, by whom we were thus once again targeted. Unfortunately, the goal is the truth and, above all, the right of citizens to be accurately informed,“ Lazarevic said.
„And finally, as far as ‘calls’ are concerned, once again, I call on the leadership of SL to stop discriminating our media outlet, that is, the public that is informed via our portal,“ Lazarevic stressed.
„This marks the umpteenth time SL branded and falsely accused us, although this is the first time they’ve done so in a public statement. That is why I view this announcement as pressure on our portal, precisely because of objective reporting. I advise Srpska Lista to read our texts carefully before writing the statement next time.“
„I will inform domestic and international expert associations about the latest allegations as soon as possible,“ Lazarevic said.
The KoSSev editorial office was shot at in 2015, while the director’s car was set on fire the same year. In 2016, the editor’s family received threats.
The very same year, a top official of this party told us that „things will become difficult for us“ if we do not find common ground.
The portal also experienced several strong DDOS and other hacking attacks, physical attacks on our journalists, threats through social media networks. The KoSSev portal was also removed from the list of media outlets that receive press releases on the activities of the government and other institutions, while inquiries and questions we send to these institutions often remain ignored.
Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
