More than 50 employees of the Serbian-language TV channel RTK2 and the Serbian editorial office of RTK1 distanced themselves from the text published on the portal of Kosovo’s public service broadcaster in the Serbian language about the March riots, which stated that the Albanian boys allegedly drowned „while running away from a group of Serbian youths“. They stressed that the article is not the product of journalists or editors of Serbian newsrooms.
The news piece was rectified in the meantime – the section about the Albanian children drowning „while running away from a group of Serbian youths“ was deleted, along with other minor changes were made. An apology was issued with a clarification that it was an „unintentional technical journalistic error“. The Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS) and Association of Journalists of Kosovo and Metohija reacted once again, demanding that the text be removed immediately.
This Sunday marked 20 years since March 17, 2004 – the most significant ethnic violence that broke out in Kosovo after the entry of international military and civilian forces.
The violence occurred after the drowning of three Albanian boys from Cabra, in the river Ibar, and the Kosovo media reports about the event as an ethnically motivated crime, namely, that the boys jumped into the river because they were being chased by Serbs with a dog.
The media referred to the statements of the fourth, surviving boy and the only eyewitness to the accident, but it eventually turned out that the boy was talking about the Serbs who swore at them from a nearby house – which scared him and his friends – and not that the Serbs were chasing them.
Later, after an investigation into this event, the international prosecutor concluded that the evidence offered did not support any reasonable suspicion that a criminal offense had been committed.
Despite this, 20 years later, the portal of Radio Television of Kosovo in the Serbian language, RTK2, alleged in its article about the anniversary of the March riots that the Albanian boys drowned „while fleeing from a group of Serbian youths“.
The UNS and its Kosovo branch reacted yesterday, stating that the published news was „largely the same news from 20 years ago and carries with it not only the risk of tragic consequences for the entire area, but also an obvious attempt at historical revision“ of the events of 17 March 2004.
They requested that the sentence on the „false news that three Albanian boys were running away from Serbian youths“ be removed from the article.
In the meantime, the text in question on the RTK website was revised, with an apology at the end of the article and the declaration that it was an „unintentional technical journalistic error“.
The sentence that Albanian children drowned „while running away from a group of Serbian youths“ was removed and other minor changes were made.
The text should be removed immediately
„UNS and DNKiM harshly condemn the ‘corrections’ which are only formal and basically retain the spirit and essence of the previous news and do not at any moment inform the readers and the public that it is fake news“ – UNS and DNKiM reacted once again.
They added that the „revised news piece“ of RTK makes no mention of the March pogrom – „riots“ were directed against Serbs, their heritage and property.
„This interpretation of the facts and ‘correction’ of yesterday’s news led to the fact that it does not mention the Serbs and that the reader cannot conclude that this happened to them, while it does say that property and hundreds of private facilities owned by Albanians were destroyed“.
UNS and DNKiM demanded that the news be immediately removed from the site for containing elements of hate speech, and unprofessional and inaccurate reporting of the crime committed in March 2004.
The text was originally published in Albanian, it is not the product of Serbian editorial decisions
In the meantime, more than 50 employees at the Serbian language TV channel RTK2 and in the Serbian newsroom of RTK1, including the director, journalists, editors, cameramen, editors and other staff, distanced themselves from the controversial text.
They demand that professional responsibility be investigated in this regard, stating that the text was actually originally published in the Albanian language, and that it was not the product of Serbian editorial decisions.
„Text published on the portal rtklive.com in Serbian on March 17, 2024, on the occasion of the anniversary of the March violence, does not represent the content they wrote, that is, what was reported on by TV channel RTK2 and the program in Serbian RTK1. This text was originally published in the Albanian language, translated and published in the Serbian language, but it is not the product of journalistic or editorial decisions of the Serbian newsrooms,“ they stated.
They emphasize that the portal rtklive.com/rtk2, Facebook page RTK2 and YouTube channel are not under the control of RTK2.
„Therefore, neither journalists nor editors of RTK2 stand behind this content. On the contrary, RTK2 journalists’ reports on the commemoration of the March violence, such as the report on the memorial service in Gračanica, were not published on the website in Serbian,“ they added.
They note that RTK2’s daily news section on the anniversary of the March riots reiterates a professional, impartial, objective and factual approach.
That is our obligation as a public service in the Serbian language
The employees who signed the letter state that they do not want „to share tendentious information“ under the name of RTK2.
„We announce that our reporting on this and other topics always takes into account all the concerns of the community, as well as all citizens in Kosovo.“
At the same time, they supported the reaction of journalist associations, but also asked RTK and regulatory bodies to determine the degree of violation of professional standards in connection with the text about the anniversary of March 17.
The letter was signed by: Aleksandra Zdravković, acting director of RTK2, Siniša Kostić, Marko Zakić Marija Stanojković, Tijana Danić, Tanja Gapić, Mirjana Marinković, Bojan Tomić, Marija Perić, Jelena Đorđević, Anamari Repić, Dragana Pajović, Aleksandra Nićić, Tatjana Slavić, Maja Denić, Nenad Radomirović, Bojana Uzunović, Ivan Vučković, Milica Živić, Gordana Kosanović, Žarko Joksimović, Ana Stevanović, Aleksandar Miladinović, Bojan Košanin, Ivan Jorgić, Jovan Radić, Milorad Staletović, Sead Ramić, Snezana Trajković, Marko Lazić, Vanja Simić, Ivica Stoilković, Biserka Đurđević, Miodrag Lekić, Kostadinka Stojanović, Spasoje Cvetković, Siniša Dekić, Mladjan Trajković, Miloš Jovanović, Slaviša Lekić, Slaviša Jovanović, Miroslav Cvejić, Vladimir Denić, Predrag Dobrić, Bojan Perenić, Danijel Ćirković, Ivan Galić, Slobodan Šubarić , Vladimir Petrović, Jelena Jovanović, Dobrivoje Cvejić, Stefan Jovanović and Miloš Stoiljković.
The role of the media
In March 2004, the role of the Kosovo media emerged as a special issue, on which the OSCE in Vienna issued a special report in which it criticized “obvious spin“, “irresponsible and sensational“ reporting by the electronic media in Albanian.
“It should also be noted that the media, specifically the broadcasting sector, displayed unacceptable levels of emotion, bias, carelessness, and falsely applied ‘patriotic’ zeal. In particular, the reporting on the evening of 16 March by the three main Kosovar TV channels deserves the strongest possible criticism,” OSCE report states.
“As a detailed report by the OSCE’s Representative on Freedom of the Media later showed, the ethnic Albanian media played an irresponsible, inflammatory role, broadcasting information that was still unconfirmed: the surviving ethnic Albanian boy never publicly stated that the group were chased into the river by Serbs, only that the young Albanian boys had been sworn at by Serbs from a distant house.,” the Human Rights Watch underlined in its report immediately after the violence, titled “Failure to protect.”
Read more:
20th anniversary of the March riots – the distance between the communities is ever greater
Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
