UNS: By removing reports from Serbian media from its bulletin, UNMIK has undermined impartial reporting

The Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS) announced that United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) has not responded to UNS’s inquiry as to why it abolished the section featuring reports from Serbian media in its bulletin.

According to UNS, since 28 November last year UNMIK has stopped publishing content from Serbian and Albanian media in separate sections in its daily English-language bulletin, instead predominantly carrying reports from Albanian-language media.

“For ten days UNMIK has not replied to UNS in Kosovo regarding the reasons for this decision. We recall that in UNMIK’s bulletin—prepared since the start of this international mission in Kosovo by the Media Affairs Office—content from Serbian and Albanian media was published twice daily as separate sections, translated into English,” the statement said.

UNS added that in a letter sent to UNMIK it requested clarification of the decision and pointed out that this move has disrupted the sensitive balance built over previous decades. UNS also stressed that by taking this step UNMIK has jeopardized impartial reporting.

Earlier, UNS protested the decision in a statement and called on the Mission to reinstate the section containing information from Serbian media in the bulletin.

The bulletin—which largely provided balanced coverage of reporting from all media—was distributed to several thousand individual and institutional addresses, as well as to diplomatic missions across Europe and the world.

“By analyzing UNMIK’s bulletin after the Serbian section was discontinued, UNS observed, for example on Orthodox Christmas Eve (Badnji dan) this year, that a greeting by the police spokesperson for northern Kosovo was carried, claiming there had been no incidents, while information about incidents that occurred that day in Gracanica was not included. There was also no mention of the 2023 incident in which Serbian children were shot at on Orthodox Christmas Eve, which Serbian-language media reported on extensively on 6 January this year,” the statement concludes.