Publishing paid advertiser content that a newsroom does not influence has long been carried out as a way of increasing media outlets’ income. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The conditions of the narrow Montenegrin market have made many media outlets \u2013 that are not subsidized from the Government\u2019s budget \u2013 find difficult to achieve financial self-sustainability. That is why the management structures of media outlets opt either for commercialization through populist pandering to readers and sensational writing or to stick to professional norms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the last two decades, two respectable, independent and private media have been developed. Even though in the establishing period, and particularly before the referendum on the Montenegrin independence, the two media DAN <\/em>and Vijesti <\/em>enjoyed institutional and logistic support of the official Belgrade, i.e. Podgorica, it can be said that the media today have an independent editorial policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, such an approach and\ndecision of the mentioned media have had a certain price. Although DAN <\/em>still focuses on\nits printing issue and finds in it the financial justification, Vijesti,<\/em> reaching around\n75,000 daily views, has classified itself as the most read online media in\nthe country. Such a situation has significantly decreased the circulation of\nthe printing issue in that way that several years ago the media tried to\ninitiate online monthly subscription. It turned out that the Montenegrins\u2019\ndigital habits were not developed that much so that a sufficient number of\nreaders opt for a subscription. <\/p>\n\n\n Following the difficult financial\nsituation, frequently including lay-offs of journalists, Vijesti <\/em>(and DAN<\/em> to some extent) has\ndecided to introduce a new section: advertiser content. After the DFC team had\nnoticed that certain companies and political parties misused paid newspaper\nspace to deceive the public \u2013 using the influence of the media in the way that\ntheir message becomes credible \u2013 the analysis of the advertiser content\nof Vijesti <\/em>online\nwas made. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Out of 357 articles in total \u2013\nfound in the period from December 18, 2018, to December 10, 2019 \u2013 the\nportal Vijesti<\/em> had\n45 political advertiser content in total. A large number of texts were\npublished by Democrats (27), while only several texts were published by other\nopposition parties and structures (URA, DF, Coalition Da svako ima<\/em>, organization\nKOD, Albanian forum, the municipality of Budva and the municipality of Herceg\nNovi). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Democrats mostly used the\nadvertiser content to promote their views. Besides distributing disinformation,\nthey frequently use clickbait headlines, a feature of tabloid issues. In one\ntext, which may be characterized as even sexist, Democrats provided a photo of\nan attractive sportswoman in shorts with suggestive headline She is still the most attractive and\nhere is why<\/em>. It turned out that the photo and the headline were\njust a bait for readers to read the text, which content referred to the\n(alleged) accomplishments of the municipal administration of Budva. <\/p>\n\n\n On the other hand, a typical\nexample of inconsistent editorial policy is the advertiser content of the\nrestaurant Verige65<\/em> (located\nin the Bay of Kotor). The journalist of Vijesti <\/em>and\ntheir interlocutors have led for long the campaign against the construction of\nthe facility, claiming that it was about illegal doing and devastation of the\nenvironment. After the paid newspaper space, the headline in Vijest <\/em>followed: Verige65 \u2013 a combination of modern\narchitecture and deep respect of nature<\/em>. With such an inconsistent\napproach the media outlet shows that there exists a conflict of interest\nbecause it adjusts its editorial policy according to the market needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The issue with such and similar\ntexts in Vijesti <\/em>is\nan almost invisible indication that it is about advertiser content, and the\noption for a ban on commenting, bringing the censorship through the back-door\nbecause of the inability to confront opinions, which is the fundamental\ndemocratic principle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Although the habit of highlighting\na text’s nature in Vijesti <\/em>brings\nan advancement and a dose of transparency, compared to other media which do not\nmark advertiser contents as such, it certainly represents a misuse of the brand\nof Vijesti<\/em>,\nwhich enjoys confidence with the largest number of readers and has the support\nof international non-profit institutions because of its professional relation.\nIf Vijesti <\/em>does\nnot soon distinguish advertiser content from its professional reporting more clearly,\nit will be a serious threat to the community\u2019s efforts to advance medial\nliteracy in Montenegro. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DFC Magazine issue 15 <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Publishing paid advertiser content that a newsroom does not influence has long been carried out as a way of increasing media outlets’ income. The conditions of the narrow Montenegrin market have made many media outlets \u2013 that are not subsidized from the Government\u2019s budget \u2013 find difficult to achieve financial self-sustainability. That is why the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6786,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfc.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfc.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfc.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfc.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfc.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dfc.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfc.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfc.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfc.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfc.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Misuse of paid newspaper space<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n
An example of inconsistent editorial policy and the conflict of interest<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n