Original article (in Montenegrin) was published on 21/06/2022
This year, the “Exit” music festival, held at the Petrovaradin Fortress since 2000, will be opening its gates for visitors on July 7. The Ukrainian band “Kalush Orchestra“, this year’s winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, will be among the main stage performers. This is how the IN4S portal reported the announced performance:
Exit as a promoter of Nazism!? Kalush Orchestra on tour to raise money for arming the Ukrainian army
The article published by IN4S says that Novi Sad is hosting those financing the purchase of weapons used to kill Russian children. They make a point of the fact that, after winning the Eurovision Song Contest, the band auctioned off their trophy to raise money for the Ukrainian army for 900 thousand dollars.
Is Novi Sad a city that will bring humiliation to descendants of fighters against fascism and victims of fascism this summer? Novi Sad, a city that celebrates Nazism?
When fact-checking the article published by IN4S, it is first important to point out that it is indeed true that “Kalush Orchestra” sold their Eurovision trophy. The money was handed over to Serhiy Pritula, a charity foundation founded by Ukrainian TV presenter. As the Foundation announced at the time, the money is to be used for purchasing three drones that the Ukrainian army will be using for surveillance. The organization’s website states as follows:
“In February 2022, after Russia launched a full-scale invasion, the Foundation joined the Army supply movement, covering the needs of both the Armed Forces fighters and members of Territorial Defense units… The Foundation buys protective gear, optic devices, drones, medical supplies, and transport vehicles for the military. Another direction they work on is humanitarian aid.”
After winning the Eurovision Song Contest, members of “Kalush Orchestra” urged their fans to show support by donating to help the Ukrainian army.
“Every euro you donate will help save the lives of Ukrainian soldiers!”
There is another false claim in the text published by IN4S. Namely, this portal “recalls that the invitation was extended to a band whose members were publicly making the Sieg Heil salute after the so-called win at the Eurovision”. The fact-checkers of Reuters have proved that the claims about the Nazi salute at Eurovision were fake news, and our colleagues from Raskrinkavanje in Bosnia and Herzegovina also labeled these claims as false.
Therefore, there can be no talk of the “Exit” festival promoting Nazism by hosting a Ukrainian band that is helping its country, nor of the band raising money for arming their military forces.
We are hereby recalling that IN4S refers to Russia’s military attack against the sovereign state of Ukraine, otherwise condemned by almost the entire world, as a “special operation” aimed at the “denazification” of this country. We have been tackling Kremlin’s narratives, fake news, disinformation and conspiracy theories reported by this web portal in several analyses.
The war in Ukraine began in late February this year, shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. A few days later, the vast majority of United Nations member states condemned Russia’s attack against Ukraine and imposed sanctions, including Montenegro.
Sanctions imposed on Russia over its aggression against Ukraine include the freezing of assets and economic resources of some Russian citizens and companies in Montenegro and the banning of Russian pro-government media.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, 4,452 civilians were killed and 5,531 injured In Ukraine, as announced by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on June 15. The statement further says that the actual figures are substantially higher than those reported, as fatality reports from heavy fighting areas are yet to be confirmed. According to UNHCR data, roughly 6.8 million people left the country, while at least 7.7 million were internally displaced by June 3.
Given all of the above, there is nothing that indicates that Novi Sad is celebrating Nazism, nor that Serbia’s biggest festival is promoting Nazism. Therefore, the article published by IN4S portal is rated as disinformation and biased reporting.
The “disinformation” rating is assigned to media reports containing a “mix” of facts and inaccurate or semi-true content. In such cases, the media may not necessarily be aware of inaccurate information being published alongside the truthful ones. Reports containing false attributions or misleading titles are also labelled as disinformation.
The “Biased reporting” label is given to a media report that can be clearly identified as favoring facts, views, and conclusions that fit a certain narrative and often failing to abide by the journalistic rules and report on both sides of the story when presenting claims that are harmful to one’s reputation, or portraying certain actors in a negative light. One of the forms of biased reporting is the selective presentation of facts, where the facts that support a certain thesis are emphasized, while the facts that do not back a certain claim tend to be omitted.
Such media reports are generally marked by emotionally-driven writing. They may or may not be inaccurate, but, as a rule, they fail to paint the big picture and present all sides of the story, but only those facts that fit the preferred narrative.
