The GONG NGO has published guidelines for safe and responsible journalism in times of crisis which say that strategic lawsuits against public participation and disinformation are the biggest threats to journalism and outline recommendations for a better status of journalists in editorial boards.

The project authored by journalist Djurdjica Klancir was realised in cooperation with the Croatian Journalists Association and the Croatian Journalists Trade Union. It was made public after GONG organised a series of talks and interviews with journalism representatives last year.

In that survey, most journalists singled out the rising problem of pressure from advertisers, private corporations, and the government via ministries and various forms of covert advertising.

Some advertising models which are becoming increasingly dominant in Croatia’s media sphere are pathologically reshaping journalism’s fundamental task – timely and independent information, the survey shows.

Those models include conferences organised by media owners and editorial boards with companies and state institutions, and native ads, those which follow the form of the outlet they appear in.

Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) are seen as a big threat which significantly affects the work of editorial boards and some journalists as they cause self-censorship and the avoiding of topics on those inclined to sue in order to avoid long and exhausting trials and damages.

The weakened journalistic profession finds it increasingly difficult to resist disinformation, the survey shows. Digital media, which insist on speed of publication, invest less and less in checking the accuracy of what they publish, from PR releases to social media posts.