Original article (in Montenegrin) was published on 07/12/2021
Sensationalist media do not give up on anything to raise readership or viewership. Guided primarily by such interests, they can recycle, abuse and even forge certain content.
This is exactly what the Montenegrin portal IN4S did when it published the alleged speech of the leader of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina Nenad Canak a few days ago, in which, as they claim, Canak says that “Serbs should take matters into their own hands”, that 2Yugoslavia is an unnatural creation”, and many other ratings.
“Slovenes, Croats, Muslims are most responsible for our national ruin, I deliberately say Muslims, because the Serbian national body is constantly being crushed, because they change their religion a little, they are a nation immediately, they change their geography a little, they are a nation, they don’t live with the motherland, they proclaim the nation, crush the body, the living body, tear the flesh of our people from our bones, crushing our holy mother, the Serbian Orthodox Church, which has been watching over us for 800 years, over our national interest, which is above all,” Canak said, according to claims IN4S.
Along with the article, IN4S also attached a video of the alleged speech.
However, the truth is quite different.
TV Happy editor Milorad Maric recently hosted Canak in one of his shows, asking him to explain the behavior of Serbian nationalists, to which Canak responded with a satirical speech.
The recording is also available on the YouTube channel TV Happy, which shows that Maric “persuaded” Canak to the mentioned speech (31:00).
“Can you talk for five minutes about what people would like to hear?” Maric asks, after which Canak begins his speech.
This was confirmed by one Twitter user, who explained what actually happened.
“I don’t think there is an expression for media madness in Serbia. Watch out for this case: media villain M. Maric recently persuaded Canak in one of his shows to talk about Serbian nationalists, whom he attacks. C. gives a satirical speech in that style, live on the show. This morning, Seselj brought an audio recording of Canak’s speech to the same television, to the same show (!?), claiming that he received it from intelligence agencies and that it originated in 1990. The dumb hosts are shocked and fiercely thankful for the exclusives. One random cause of hopelessness,” the user said on Twitter.
This was also confirmed by Canak, stating that he gave a lecture on TV Happy on how nationalism looks.
“Well, it’s ridiculous… A couple of weeks ago, showing how much nationalists are down-to-earth misery, I proved that EVERYONE can talk like them, and gave a LECTURE on what their speech looks like… and now it’s an “exclusive” that the liar and forger V.S. sells… A wretch and a coward”, wrote Canak.
Having in mind that IN4S used satirical content without checking the facts, in which it was not emphasized that it was satirical, the publication of the mentioned report is rated as “manipulation of facts”.
The “manipulation of facts” rating is given to a media report that uses known and accurate facts, but interprets them in a misleading way. These reports generally use accurate information to draw inaccurate conclusions or claims, thus misleading media content consumers in relation to the actual meaning of the facts presented.