IREX and USAID commemorated the close of the Serbian Media Assistance Program [6], marking 15 years of United States media support in Serbia, with a conference in Belgrade attended by representatives of the media, the American and Serbian governments, and international institutions and donors.
The program, launched at a time when the media in Serbia were under strict state control, has taken a “whole-station” approach to supporting independent and sustainable media in the country. With funding from USAID, IREX has worked to ensure that the legal and regulatory environment for media in Serbia is stronger and more transparent, effective, and stable. It has increased the managerial and financial capacity of independent media outlets, and enhanced the quality and availability of information for Serbian citizens.
The conference, entitled “Building Independent Media in Serbia—Fifteen Years Later,” included discussions of contemporary media law, media strategy and its implementation, media freedom, investigative journalism, social media for journalists, media market and trends, media literacy, and preconditions and critical issues for media development in Serbia. It featured training sessions on investigative journalism and photojournalism. A series of short films [7] was also a feature of the multimedia event.
[7]The conference, which was streamed live worldwide via the Internet, featured a number of high-profile speakers, including Michael D. Kirby, U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Serbia, and Bratislav Petković, Serbian Minister of Culture and Information.
The Serbia Media Assistance Program [6] is implemented by IREX under a cooperative agreement with USAID [8]. The program focuses on building the capacity of Serbian media institutions and individual media professionals in print, broadcast, and new media.