At the corner of Nemanjina and Resavska, before the ruins of the General Staff, the bus turns. This time he takes a different route. It's the day before the anniversary of the beginning of the bombing of FR Yugoslavia.
"They are protesting something again, how much longer, that they went to university when they are not studying," comments a woman with red hair in a green coat, cackling. Across the street sits a little girl, tightly holding her little scooter while her mother explains that these are students who are "pumping" and fighting for their demands. A woman in a petticoat starts a lively discussion: in short, she is bothered by the lack of information of the girl's mother, whom she sees for the first time, and the way she brings up the child. There were two realities.
"Mob", "plenums and Bolsheviks", "extremists", "terrorists" and many other things could and can be heard on television with a national frequency, as well as read in the pro-regime press, all at the expense of students in the blockade. As a result, we have the attitude of the lady from the bus.
However, the public did not count on the fact that those who grew up with phones and do not follow traditional media so much, and are quite immune to manipulations from that kitchen in this context, will deal with those media and their reporting.
Perhaps the "mob" from the Public Service suffered the most, which was followed by a twenty-two-hour blockade. Before the blockade itself, united students of the University of the Arts (faculties of drama, applied, fine and musical arts) called for a boycott of RTS, who explained that they witnessed the painstaking process of breaking through information about the student blockades into the central news programs, as well as that only well-filtered crumbs were broadcast.
United students of the University of Arts in blockade on February 14 announced a "media war" on RTS on their social networks, and a few days later they called for its boycott.
RETURN RTS TO THE CITIZENS
"It all started when, on December 12, 2024, RTS published a report by its reporter in the central news program Dnevnik 2, in which it is said that on that day the students added new demands to the existing demands," FDU students in the blockade told "Vreme".
After an email sent to the editor-in-chief of the news program with a request for the correction of incorrectly presented information, with a reminder that the said request was the first request of FDU students, the one for which they went into blockades on November 25 of the same year and gave a deadline of thirty days for its fulfillment (which was not fulfilled), the students launched a media war against RTS.
As they say, the media war is crucial for their fight. "We live in the world of media and the reason why we are waiting more than three months for the fulfillment of the request is precisely the media image in Serbia. Media control does not exist, we do not have the REM Council. Journalists have forgotten about the code, if they ever knew it. RTS employees do not know the media laws or the statutes and regulations of the house they work in. We have a responsibility to warn the citizens against unprofessional and non-transparent work", said the students.
The students describe the media image in Serbia as a wild west, because, as they explain, objective and professional media are a hardly visible minority, no one monitors the media, the REM Council did not fulfill its legal obligations even when it existed, anyone who has a little more money and belongs to certain social circles can become the owner of a TV frequency, and national frequencies are not allocated by law. In response to the recent announcement by the RTS collegium, in which they say that they will protect their workers from persecution, insults and labeling, as well as that there can be no protest without an attack on RTS, the students say that they are not conquering RTS, but are trying to return it to the citizens. "We are telling the RTS to address the public with a statement that it will shut down for an indefinite period of time, so that it has time to read all the laws, regulations, statutes and codes that it would have to comply with," the students told "Vreme".
And in the Public Service itself, workers gathered in the fight for objective information, which they stood by the students and their demands. The host of Radio Belgrade 2, Saša Ćirić, sent an open letter to the editorial board of RTS in which he characterized their announcement as a good joke and said that "since RTS is the common house of all of us in Serbia, everyone has the right to comment and criticize it and to demand, you are absolutely right, a better and fundamentally different RTS..."
IN EVERY SOUP, A SPICY
Apart from the Public Service, the tabloid "Informer" was also on the radar of the blocked students. It's not "in" to start a media riot, but when announcements and messages don't do the job, students fight back as best they can. As students of the Faculty of Political Sciences announced, "Informer" has been conducting a systematic campaign of lies, manipulation and targeting of students since the moment of the blockade. However, the last straw was the last attack on the student Davud Delimećac and the involvement of his mother in the whole story. Since then, a "media war" with "Informer" has been announced.
In addition to monitoring (they publish it on their social networks), the installation "Journalistic Wall of Shame" can be seen at this faculty, in which the front pages of "Informer" are highlighted.
"Writing 'Informer' is a constant violation of journalistic and human ethics, where students, not only me but also my colleagues, label themselves. My family was targeted this time. 'Infomer' greatly contributed to creating a bad image of students and student blockades, precisely because student blockades raised very important topics for this society," explains Davud Delimeđac, a student at the Faculty of Political Sciences.
You shouldn't remain silent in the face of attacks, but you shouldn't deal with them excessively either, because they are lies. The media war, as Davud explains for "Vreme", is a metaphor and actually indicates that the students plan to more thoroughly analyze the statements and lies that could be read and seen in "Informer" in the previous months.
"Media war", the students say, "is a fight against unethical and unprofessional journalism that uses lies, manipulation and propaganda as a tool to discredit individuals and groups."
'Informer' has become synonymous with the worst forms of propaganda, abusing the media space to spread misinformation and target dissenters. Our fight is aimed at restoring dignity and ethical standards in journalism," the students say. The field, as they say in the announcement, was set by "Informer", but the students decide on the further course of action.
The Association of Journalists of Serbia also announced about the "Informer" case, which states in a statement that "Informer" did violate the rules of professional reporting and ethical norms, but it also emphasizes that any type of threat is dangerous and calls on students to refrain from the latest announcement or to explain precisely what follows. The blocking of the "Infomera" building itself was not directly called by the students, but, they explain, it was a spin that started from "Informer" itself.
PLANET B-612
In the ongoing struggle, some have social networks through which they advertise, their creativity and ethics, and others have endless resources, television, portals and newspapers, other media with a national frequency that support them and, finally, more than close ties with the authorities.
That fight is similar to the one with the baobabs To the Little Prince. It is big and complex, and the ways are very important.
As Judita Popović, a former member of REM, explains for "Vreme", if an institution is trapped and does not perform its function, it does not actually exist in reality, but is a backdrop with an apparent content. Tearing down the scenery also means releasing the truth, the real one, not the alternative one. Blockades of obscure media are legitimate but also effective, judging by the nervous reaction of the regime, which is aware of the danger of losing a significant pillar of its survival in power. "We are living the emergence of a new social consensus, which includes the rule of law and the functioning of institutions. Freeing the RTS is crucial in order to adequately respond to the naked primitivism, regime propaganda and change the media image of Serbia," says Popović. She adds that from the program content of RTS, and especially from the news program, one can clearly see a more sophisticated direction of information and manipulation of it, as opposed to the primitive, fan and propaganda classification of TV stations Pink, Informer, Happy, Prva, B92, Studio B and others with the regime.
Finally, it is important to emphasize one more aspect: in this, as they call it, media war, it was again shown how solidarity students are among themselves. They showed that when an individual is threatened, the others do not remain silent. Apart from the struggle to fulfill the requirements, students also take on other roles in society. How many additional roles await them? How many general interest exams do they have to pass? How fair is it to leave everything to them in the fight with the baobabs?
