Old Stories are Hot News in Balkan Media

A number of media outlets in Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia duly "reported" this development, some for the second time, since they also reported it three years ago.

Most of them quoted Radio Free Europe, RFE, saying that after the movement was registered on April 18, this had drawn negative reactions from the public and prompted the Montenegrin NGO Civil Alliance to request a ban.

For what it's worth, it seems that the media at least quoted RFE appropriately; they often copy news without acknowledging the source. In this case, they copied it too literally - except for the date, obviously - because their old news quoted the then "Deputy Prime Minister" Dusko Markovic, who has in the meantime become Prime Minister. Clearly this detail slipped under the radar.

Montengrin Prime Minister Dusko Markovic. Photo: EPA-EFE/ROBERT GHEMENT

A Google search shows various media published articles about this topic in at least three countries in the region. These can also be found through news aggregators, which still store headlines and links, although most of the links now appear to be broken.

While unaware of their mistake at the time of making it, which is no excuse for a lack of attentiveness and professionalism, it is even worse that many media also tried to erase their mistake afterwards - by removing the articles - while others did nothing.

Both approaches come as no surprise, as both are well known strategies for the media in Serbia and the region.

Media outlets that failed to resist the urge to publish this old news ranged from Serbian tabloids, such as Espreso or Telegraf, to more professional media, such as Danas or Al Jazeera Balkans. The latter two decided to simply delete their erroneous content...