Podgorica, (MINA) – The Montenegrin society needs objective self-regulation which will implement ethical standards in work of the media outlets, based on the agreed code, said Director of the Media Directorate in the Ministry of Culture Zeljko Rutovic.
Asked if Montenegro needs a single regulatory body to monitor implementation of the Journalists’ Code, he told Mina that objective self-regulation is without doubt needed towards achieving professional and ethical informing.
According to him, independently of concrete form of interior or exterior type, respecting and application of professional principles are expected.
Asked if he believed that forming of a body which recommendations would be respected by all media outlets is possible, having in mind polarized media scene, Rutovic said that all previous experiences in the area of institutional defining of a single body proved to be unsuccessful and discouraging for any recent forming of such a body.
Asked if he believed that Montenegrin media sufficiently support the Journalists’ Code, he said that the Ministry of Culture, under its competences, does not have institutional mandate for analyzing and assessing respecting of the Code, and referred to the continuously negative assessments of the European Commission in regard to this issue.
Asked to assess the level of self-regulation in the Montenegrin media, and if it is sufficient to provide ethical and objective reporting, Rutovic recalled the part of the recent EC report in which it is stated that it is necessary to increase efforts in order to establish efficient self-regulatory mechanisms.
This text is produced with the financial support of the European Union, through the project of Dealing with Ethics and Fake News, reference number IPA2018/397-252. The content is the exclusive responsibility of the Mina news agency and does not necessarily reflect the positions of the EU. The text may be distributed provided that its source is duly credited.Longer version of article is available on a link MINA ENGLISH SERVIS
