Human Rights Action wants to inform the public that the Council of Council of Radio Television of Montenegro (RTCG) has accepted a complaint submitted by HRA director, Tea Gorjanc-Prelevic, because the state-owned television did not inform the public about HRA’s report “Monitoring of Journalistic Self-Regulatory Bodies in Montenegro”.
Upon the complaint, the Council of RTCG recommended the TVCG director, Radojka Rutović, to “pay attention to events of public interest in planning contents to be presented within the central news, and make every effort to find room for such information”. The Council’s decision was based on the report issued by the RTCG’s Commission for Appeals and Complaints, which concluded that “presentation of this report was an event of public interest that should have been covered and presented to the public within the News 2 – the most watched news programme”. The Commission also concluded that “by failing to broadcast information on the event and the report itself, the public service broadcaster did not respect one of its main aims, its obligation to process information in Montenegro timely and comprehensively, in an objective and balanced manner, supporting a constructive dialogue”.
In a complaint submitted to the Council of RTCG Commission, HRA particularly pointed out 13 violations of the Code of Montenegrin Journalists in TVCG reporting that were included in HRA’s report. In relation to these violations, the Council of RTCG recommended the TVCG director to “accept all HRA’s observations from the report as applicable, to carefully analyse them and take all necessary measures in order to avoid there professional oversights from happening again”.
Of the mentioned cases we pointed out to the Council, we particularly emphasize the drastic example of violation of the Code in TVCG’s reporting from the news conference of Frank La Rue, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression. Namely, TVCG reported: “What La Rue heard, he wrote down in the report, but he could barely read it…”, followed by a video of Mr La Rue, who as a foreigner and person with obviously bad eyesight, had difficulties with reading and pronouncing Montenegrin names. By unduly emphasising Mr Le Rue’s weak eyesight and lack of knowledge of the Montenegrin language, the journalist jeopardized his personal integrity and violated the Principle 9 of the Code of Montenegrin journalists.
We welcome the position of the RTCG Commission in deciding on our complaint and remind citizens on their right to write to the Commission for Appeals and Complaints of Listeners and Viewers within a month from broadcasting a controversial report, as well as if they notice a violation of journalistic ethics or have other complaints on the operation of the public broadcaster.
