Vanovac: The duty of journalists is the truth; exposing fake news can take years

President of the Journalists' Association of Kosovo and Metohija, Ivana Vanovac, says for Kosovo Online that it is the duty of journalists to convey the truth and always expose fake news, regardless of the fact that this task may take many years.

"The duty of journalists is always to expose fake news. Whether it is tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or a month later, sometimes it takes years of investigative work to debunk something. But our job is always to tell the truth. Every fake news story must be debunked sooner or later, corrected, and those behind it must be held accountable because we have seen, for example, on March 17th, that it can cause enormous casualties," Vanovac said.

She emphasizes that the most difficult job that requires time is proving that certain information is not accurate.

"As soon as fake news is published, damage is done, and the time it takes to debunk it determines the extent of the damage," Vanovac emphasizes.

She reminds that on March 17th, on the portal RTK in the Serbian language, a news story from 2004 was repeated in the second sentence, about three boys drowning while fleeing from Serbian young men, which later led to tragic events.

"We know that the cause of the March events is different, but the trigger was a horrific fake news story. What should concern us more is that today, 20 years later, the same media outlet is ready to republish a story that 20 years ago triggered all those criminal events that befell the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija," Vanovac says.

She notes that the Journalists' Association of Kosovo and Metohija immediately contacted all regulatory bodies in Kosovo, as well as international journalism associations, seeking condemnation of such reporting.

"We will absolutely not stop until, at the very least, all of these institutions and organizations express their disapproval and condemn such unprofessional behavior by the public broadcaster in this area," Vanovac concludes.