NEZAVISNI - civic magazine of Vojvodina
Mirko Sebic, Editor in chief
ADDRESS:
 Zmaj Jovina 4, 21 000 Novi Sad,
Serbia
TELEPHONE/FAX.: + 381 21 423 842
E-mail: nezavisn@fodns.opennet.org
// www.nezavisni.co.yu
Informational-political magazine "Nezavisni" started out in 1992 as a twice in a
month issue, founded by Independent Journalist of Vojvodina Society - the first
independent organization of this kind in former Yugoslavia. The motives for starting
"Nezavisni" were reaction of journalists to information blockade, media
manipulation and war-encouraging politics of Serbian government. Main goals of our work
are fight for media freedom, democratization of society and decentralization of our
country, tolerance, human and civil rights and affirmation of a multiethnic and
multicultural community.
First (tira`) and number of pages of the "Nezavisni" was
limited - 16 pages, 1500 copies. It was distributed in Novi Sad and nearby cities. Since
1994, "Nezavisni" becomes a weekly edition and it had 2500 copies with 32 pages
each. In 1995, number of pages was increased to 48.
From 1995 to 1997, we published "Nezavisni" regularly with
many financial troubles - but we managed to solve them with help from our donators. But in
March 1997 we stuck in financial troubles with many staff problems and under pressure of
our political environment, we had an editorial collapse and we stopped publishing
"Nezavisni".
New series of "Nezavisni", with a completely new journalists
and editors started out on 05. Avg. 1997. The newspaper kept basic principles of Editorial
concept and main goals of our action, but the contents of the paper was refreshed with the
new, more universal approach. "Nezavisni" comes out of local and regional themes
and starts writing more about political life, global politic and economic problems in our
country, but in Balkan and ex-Yugoslavian states also.
New series of "Nezavisni" starts with 3000 copies, 50 pages,
but soon we increased the number of copies to 5000 (with the 20-30% of each number
unsold), also we widened our sale area to whole Yugoslavia with an accent on Vojvodina and
other urban cities.
Contents is organized in a following way:
Intro pages, with a comment, news from the last week, and a
caricature-comment, (5 pages)
Politics, country and society (20-24 pages), World or ex-YU
(2-4pages), Culture (12-14 pages);
Local and regional themes (6-8 pages), various pages concerning
subculture "NGO" scene etc (5 pages)
In the political section we got corespondents in all major centers
from Yugoslavia and ex-YU countries. We have interviews and reports. Significant accent is
put on covering cultural events.
Our redaction has 12 journalists and 6 editors. We also have
permanent corespondents from other centers.
For the technical matters and (print preparations?) we got stuff of 6
people.
Our main occupation is publishing our weekly newspaper, but considering
that our goals are very wide, our work does not stop there. We founded and we still
coordinate regional corespondents network which informs us about differences, minority
problems and problems of living in multiethnic communities. The project is called
"Panonija Press" and was introduced in 1998 in London on the Reporting Diversity
Conference, organized by Center for War, Peace, and the News Media of New York University
and Freedom forum foundation. Through this project we were included in a wider Reporting
diversity network developed in Eastern Europe and coordinated by Center for War, Peace and
informational media.
We are in position to contribute to development of local journalism and
to help founding and development of media on languages of minorities, thanks to this
project.
Also we are one of the founders of the independent media organization
"Multiethnic media Forum of Vojvodina. This organization would be engaged in
developing of free journalism in Vojvodina, fighting against oppressive measures of
authorities against journalists and media, developing journalism on minority languages and
better informing about specific problems of this region.
This gave us idea to form Center for Independent Journalism that should
make possible better education and research in this area and help create many new
initiatives. We are working on that idea right now and we hope that this center will start
operating in 1999.
There is a good response in "NGO" sector on our actions and
initiatives and we cooperate with many local "NGO" organizations. We are also in
contact with local media although our newspaper is not a local newspaper; we are working
in Local Printed Media association (LOCAL PRESS).
"Nezavisni" has a team of people that explores, researches
and works in other media like video, Internet etc. Our shortened edition is on the
Internet since March 1998 and we intend to continue this. We also plan to record certain
themes and happenings on video.
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