Original article (in Serbian) was published on 02/02/2023
Informer, Alo and Objektiv were angry that Nova.rs reported that Pristina’s request for membership was not passed by the Council of Europe, without stating that the “wise policy” and “patriotic diplomacy” of Aleksandar Vucic were responsible for this. Judging by the fact that all three web portals cited their newsrooms as the source, and their texts differ somewhat, it seems as if three different journalists got the same idea to criticize Nova for not praising Vucic, and with some identical sentence constructions. Informer told Raskrikavanje that they were the first to publish the text and that Alo and Objektiv were only “inspired” by it, but that they did not properly cite them as the source.
The web portal Nova.rs reported yesterday that Kosovo’s request for membership in that organization will apparently not be considered at the Council of Europe assembly in April. In the text, they suggest that the request was blocked thanks to the USA, as well as that the German embassy in Pristina also opposed the request.
The pro-regime tabloids, Alo, Informer and Objektiv, didn’t like this. Within a few minutes, all three of them published texts criticizing this web portal for not praising Aleksandar Vucic.
As they state, the fact that this request will not be on the agenda of the Council of Europe assembly is the result of the president’s “wise policy” and “patriotic diplomacy”, which Nova.rs, in their opinion, should have mentioned but did not. Informer writes that “opposition newspapers” are always the first to attack the president, and when it comes to praising his “hard work and politics” – they are “nowhere” to be found. Objektiv and Alo write similarly.
All three tabloids cited their newsrooms as sources. The texts are not identical or copied from each other: they are written in different words, featuring different titles and sentences, but some phrases are identical.
For example, all three media mention Vucic’s “patriotic diplomacy” and “tycoon media” that “don’t really care about Kosovo”, but that’s not the end.
Infomer writes the following:
“Regarding the news that Pristina’s request for membership was not passed in the Council of Europe, a small piece of news was published on the tycoon media, as if it had come by itself, as if it had fallen from the sky, and not that it was actually due to the patriotic diplomacy of President Vucic”.
Alo has adhered to the topic:
“The tycoon media can, together with false patriots, attack Vucic for months (…), and then, when all the strength and perseverance and integrity of Vucic’s patriotic diplomacy are shown in action, then they publish one piece of news, as if it fell from the sky, as if it came by itself”.
Objektiv tried its best to elaborate these constructions in its own words, but the essence remained the same:
“(…) When all the strength, perseverance and honesty of Vucic’s patriotic diplomacy are shown in action, then they publish a single little news and remain silent about the president’s efforts! What is impossible not to notice is how Nova S reports – as if it happened by itself, that it fell from the sky, and not that the wise policy led by President Vucic is responsible for everything!”
We asked Alo, Objektiv and Informer for an explanation – how all three web portals published different texts on the same topic and with the same key constructions.
The only answer came from Informer. The editor-in-chief of Informer’s web portal, Nemanja Petricevic, stated that they published this text first, and the others were “inspired” by it, but did not name them as the source. It is stated above the Informer’s text that it was published at 18:14, while Alo and Objektiv wrote their texts in seven minutes and published them simultaneously at 18:21.
“I am glad that we are inspiring our colleagues from other sites and thank you for pointing out that we were not properly listed as the news source. I believe that you will also point out the omission to them”, Petricevic wrote in his reply to Raskrikavanje.
Alo and Objektiv did not respond.
By the way, this is not the first time that different pro-regime tabloids have the same “ideas” for texts, which they then write using identical phrases and sentences. Thus, on one occasion, we noted the case of almost the same, yet different texts on the website of Informer and Alo, in which it was claimed that Djilas controls the media in Serbia.