Smear Campaigns, Oligarch Media, and Street Gangs: Serbia’s Embattled Investigative Media Are a Warning to the World
Cenzolovka 01.06.2021
In March, the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network, a leading investigative news nonprofit in Serbia, was forced to put its stories on hold for two full weeks to deal with a coordinated smear campaign mounted by pro-government tabloids in Belgrade.
In an increasingly common and brazen tactic, outlets that support Serbia’s authoritarian president, Aleksandar Vučić, falsely accused the GIJN member, known by the acronym KRIK, of having ties to a notorious gangster — even though KRIK is one of the few newsrooms to expose that same gangster’s crimes. Independent editors interviewed by GIJN say this smear tactic is part of a multi-pronged harassment and repression strategy against the few independent media outlets
