Stankovic: War propaganda in Kosovo is daily; many media outlets favor misinformation

Journalist Zoran Stankovic from Gracanica assesses for Kosovo Online that war propaganda is still present in Kosovo and that many media outlets today favor misinformation or sensationalistic news directed against Serbs because they live off it.

"We can only fight with real information against misinformation, but essentially, many media outlets today favor misinformation, they live off it. For them, the most important thing is to create a sensation, even if it is false. And as long as we remain enslaved to sensationalism, nothing will change in journalism. On the contrary, it will get even worse," Stankovic says.

Drawing a parallel between wartime propaganda from 1999 and media reporting in Kosovo today, Stankovic believes that propaganda has always existed and continues daily.

"This happens every day, even today. And not only when it comes to news, but also social media, which we can now call media. Unfortunately, our big drawback is not knowing the Albanian language, so we can't keep up with everything and see everything that's being published there. Almost every day, there are media outlets that push at least one news story that will somehow portray Serbs in a negative context or remind of something that would in some way only fuel hatred. Unfortunately, because of that, these things happen to us," Stankovic warns.

Recalling the propaganda that marked the period before and during 1999, this journalist says that spinning and spreading false news intensified before the war, when several Albanian media and newspapers were launched in Kosovo.

"There has always been propaganda. In the years leading up to the war, there was this spinning, these false news stories. With the emergence and flood of more private media, many new Albanian newspapers came out. They literally started publishing even pictures that were often fake or manipulated. The era of fake news began, as did, of course, the insane belief in everything and anything the media published. I don't think anything has changed to this day. It still exists today," Stankovic emphasizes.

As one of the recent examples, he mentions RTK's reporting on the 20th anniversary of March 17th.

He says that despite Albanian media knowing the truth and the fact that the news 20 years ago about Serbs being responsible for the deaths of Albanian boys was quickly debunked, that story was repeated.

"That one sentence, just slightly differently formulated, gets a completely different connotation with the reader," Stankovic concludes.