The results of the research “Montenegrin Media Analysis – Standards, Manipulation and Objective Reporting” were presented at a conference held on Wednesday, 27th November at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Podgorica, starting at 11 am. The research was conducted within the framework of the project “Investigate as a journalist! Discover Media Literacy! “, conducted by the NGO “35mm” in collaboration with the Faculty of Political Sciences, the Union of Media and the Network for Research on Organized Crime and Corruption.
The results of the survey showed that the media is still engaged in manipulation when publishing texts, and in fake news and unverified information.
“This is a project that rounds out this year and 25 young students and young people in journalism have gone through it and five young journalists have made stories that are striking in the media dealing with journalism, which is good for a student”, said the founder and director of the NGO “35mm” Darko Ivanovic.
He added that “It all started with mentors and professionals taking a certain group of students and working with them in investigative journalism. Then they transferred their knowledge from the media unions to the activists, and what the activists were doing was transferring that knowledge to the students. With this project, we have involved some 50 people who are active in the field of what we call the 21st Century monster, that is fake news, and in doing so have instructed them how to identify false news. “The head of the media department at the US Embassy in Montenegro, Nicole Gallagher, said the project covered media literacy and youth activities.
“Media analysis aims to show and help the media in their work. The Embassy has supported the project through the Montenegrin Media Professionalisation Assistance Programme, which has funded 11 media and civil society projects over the past two years and has invested a total of 540,000 dollars through this professional standards improvement programme alone”, said Gallagher.
She said that the mechanism of investigative journalism is a project implemented in cooperation with RTCG Public Service, Centre for Investigative Reporting, Mina Agency, Television Vijesti, Media Institute, Media Union and that these are just a few of the institutions with which cooperation has been established.
President of the Union of Media of Montenegro Marijana Camovic said that the project “Analysis of Montenegrin Media – Standards, Manipulation and Objective Reporting” was done in cooperation with the NGO “35mm”, Faculty of Political Sciences and Network for Organized Crime and Corruption (LUPA).
“Through this project, 7,746 texts were analyzed, which were published in the daily newspapers Dan, Vijesti, Pobjeda and Dnevne novine, the Montenegrin news agency Mina and Mina biznis, between 20th January and 20th April, 2019. The columns that were observed are politics, economy and society as the main characteristics of the Montenegrin society”said the president of the Union of Media of Montenegro, Marijana Camovic.
“Nearly 70 percent of the articles were published in consultation with only one source, while 15 percent contained some form of manipulation. This happens more often in the headline than in the text, and often resorts to affirmation of business through hidden marketing”, Camovic said.
“Research has shown that sources can be: official, unofficial, primary, secondary and anonymous. Source selections are: one-sidedness, two-sidedness, plurality and in some cases this could not be determined. The framework of the text can be: positive or informative, negative or critical, conflicting, discriminatory, affirmative, neutral and sometimes difficult to determine. The manipulations can be in the form of: infotainment, pseudo events, storytelling, media framing, advertorials and fake news”,said Camovic.
“When it comes to the analysis of the print media, which included 5,143 articles published in the sections of politics, economy and society in the daily newspapers Vijesti, Dan, Pobjeda and Dnevne novine, in 69 percent of cases, some actual event served as the reason for publishing texts. Most media-initiated texts were published in Dan (eight percent) and Vijesti (seven percent)”, said Camovic.
“Most texts rely on information obtained from official sources. Several dozen texts were found that had no source. Most of the articles in critical tone were written by Dan and Vijesti, while affirmative texts were published by Pobjeda and Dnevne novine”, Camovic concluded.