Media in Kosovo and Serbia mostly focus on incidents and crisis situations on the ground when they report on relations between the two countries, a report published on Monday by Internews Kosova and BIRN Serbia concludes.
The report, “Journalistic Perspectives on Serbia-Kosovo Relations”, says stories on economic, cultural relations or any other cooperation between Kosovo and Serbia are “sparse”.
“Stories are mostly presented through the lenses of high politics, while the realities of everyday lives remain unseen,” it reads.
The report reviewed patterns and trends in cross-border media reporting on issues between Kosovo and Serbia by analysing 942 articles from seven different media sources between September 2022 and February 2023.
Tanja Maksic, from BIRN Serbia, on Monday stated that “when [the EU-facilitated Kosovo-Serbia] high-level dialogue stops, the media loses interest in reporting, especially in Serbia. There’s no human perspective.
“This vacuum allows disinformation to spread. Stories of cooperation are limited to donor-backed projects. We need long-term investment. Few journalists truly understand the societies on both sides, and we live in entirely different realities,” Maksic said.
Eva Palatova, deputy chief of the EU Office in Kosovo, said divisive narratives fuel mistrust and polarisation.
“We continue to see polarisation and divisive narratives that shape public opinion, create mistrust and affect reconciliation. We need to see stories of everyday people who face various challenges in their daily lives.”
Tatjana Lazarevic, director of the North Mitrovica-based media outlet in Kosovo KoSSev, emphasised that language is one of the biggest barriers for the Serbian community in Kosovo.
“Language barriers push Kosovo Serbs toward the Serbian media. Correspondents on both sides would help. But under current conditions, even positive interethnic stories are distorted by hate speech,” she said.
Kreshnik Gashi, editor-in-chief at Kallxo.com, said most newsrooms promote monoethnic journalism.
“This prevents quality reporting on interethnic relations. Official institutions contribute to misinformation by issuing one-sided press releases to distract from failures and corruption. Public discourse on interethnic cooperation in areas like healthcare, or the economy, is absent due to stigma and hate speech,” he said.
Dalibor Stupar, from the Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina, in Serbia, said that Kosovo is not a priority for the Serbian media, as “attention is focused on domestic protests after the Novi Sad tragedy. The government is on the defensive. There were even accusations that [Kosovo PM Albin] Kurti is financing the Serbian student protests”.
Dibran Istrefi, from the Pristina-based broadcaster RTV Dukagjini, said: “A major problem is access to information from Serbia-the government rarely responds, even at press conferences.”
Amra Zejneli-Loxha, head of the Radio Free Europe Kosovo Office, explained that, “for us, our Belgrade office and colleagues are a huge asset. It’s essential to report both sides of the story and to speak the language of the community you’re covering”.
Participants noted that as international funding fades, especially following the suspension of USAID and other US-based programmes, media in both countries are struggling to remain financially independent.
They called for long-term investment in journalism, including more cross-border exchange programmes, consistent funding for fieldwork and the development of media professionals fluent in both languages and cultures.
