Lekić is the only candidate for president of IJAS

The election assembly of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (IJAS/NUNS) will be held on Saturday at the Belgrade Media Center, and the only candidate for the presidency will be Slaviša Lekić (1959), a freelance journalist, who was elected head of this journalist association following the resignation of Vukašin Obradović.
Lekić is a journalist and editor in several Serbian (and Yugoslav) media, author of several books, author of numerous articles, publications, documentaries, and films – with working experience that lasts for 36 years. From 1980 to 1984, a journalist of the weekly NON (Nove omladinske novine / New Youth Newspaper). From 1984 to 1996, a journalist of the daily newspaper “Borba” (“Struggle”, later “Naša borba” / “Our Struggle”). In the period 1999-2001, journalist and editor-in-chief of the weekly “Reporter”, and then the owner and editor-in-chief of the magazine “Status” (1998-1999 and 2001-2013). Columnist at the weekly “Newsweek” 2015-2016 and the daily “Danas” from 2017, as well as a journalist, associate and columnist in several eminent newspapers and magazines of the former SFRY: “Danas”, “Nedeljna Dalmacija”, “Mladina”, “Naši dani”, “Duga”, “Vreme” and so on.
The session invitation to IJAS members included short biographies of all candidates for members of the Executive and Supervisory Boards and the Court of Honor.
The Assembly will also adopt a report on the work of IJAS in the past four years, which were marked by a trend of erosion of the media workers’ position and of the media in Serbia in general.
“Never in recent history have the media and journalists been in a worse position. Media laws, largely aligned with European standards, are not respected in practice, therefore the media market is not functioning and the media are directly subordinated to the will and (dis)favor of the authorities, as well as political and economic centers of power,”, stated the report which further notes that “it is becoming more and more evident that most media in Serbia are not engaged in detailed and rigorous oversight of the functioning of government, but are, on the contrary, serving as an apologetic and propagandist machine of the ruling nomenclature.”
Instead of providing the public with reliable information and a wide range of informed views on important political and social issues, the media are increasingly spinning the news by directing the audience’s attention to topics that have minor or no relevance for the public interest, said the report.
It is also estimated that “responsible, objective and independent media in Serbia are becoming an exception, along with a critical attitude towards the political, economic and cultural reality”.
The media is lacking public, critical dialog, and very rarely are television and radio broadcasts or newspaper columns open for differing opinions. Even rarer still are research approaches on the topics of corruption and organized crime. Instead of all this, citizens are offered the most low-minded tabloid reality contents and political propaganda. We are witnessing a complete propagandistic domination of the ruling elite, according to IJAS.
At the same time, according to the report, the number of physical or verbal attacks on journalists and their property is constantly rising. In 2014, 36 attacks on journalists were reported, 2015 – 58, 2016 – 69, 2017 – 92, and in the four months of 2018 there have already been 36 registered assaults on journalists.
The report also takes note on the “criminal character of media co-funding”, as well as the trend of rising violations of journalist ethics, problems in the work of the Media Center and the Media Group that took part in the development of the media strategy, as well as the Press Council.