(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release: Paris, 1 October 1999 For immediate release WAN, UNESCO To Help Rebuild Press Following Kosovo war Just three months after the Serbia-NATO war, the World Association of Newspapers and UNESCO have begun a major programme to help rebuild the independent press in Kosovo and Serbia and […]
(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release:
Paris, 1 October 1999
For immediate release
WAN, UNESCO To Help Rebuild Press Following Kosovo war
Just three months after the Serbia-NATO war, the World Association of
Newspapers and UNESCO have begun a major programme to help rebuild the
independent press in Kosovo and Serbia and to help it grow in Macedonia.
The project aims to build a private distribution network for independent
newspapers in Kosovo and Macedonia; to provide new private printing
facilities for independent publications in Serbia; and to extend the
existing independent distribution network in Serbia and Montenegro.
As a first step, WAN and UNESCO are planning to provide a printing plant for
independent newspapers in Serbia. Funding for this project, which is
estimated to cost about three million dollars, is being raised by UNESCO.
“The printing plant in Belgrade will be used by five independent dailies and
nine weeklies that had circulations of 450,000 daily and 200,000 weekly
before the war,” said Timothy Balding, the Director General of WAN.
“Three of the dailies and two of the weeklies have been forced to close
because of printing problems,” said Mr. Balding. “The independent press
needs an alternative to the government-controlled printing presses. The
survival and growth of free newspapers depends on the development of
independent infrastructures.”
Two printing presses, with a capacity of 400,000 copies daily, will be
installed in the new printing plant, to be purchased or built in Belgrade or
its suburbs. It will be used by the dailies Blic, Danas, NT Plus, Dnevi
Telegraf, Demokratija (the last three now closed) and the weeklies NIN,
Nedeljm Telegraf, Vreme, Svedok, Dosije X, Republika, Krug (twice monthly),
Argument and Evropljanin (the last two now closed).
Future plans include construction of a collective distribution system
consisting of both a transport and sales network for Kosovo and Macedonia
and the extension of the existing independent distribution network in Serbia
to its pre-war capacity and beyond.
The WAN/UNESCO partnership has already helped set up an independent
distribution network in Serbia, APM Transpress. Before the war, APM
Transpress was delivering more newspapers than the government controlled
distribution network and the new project includes expansion of the network.
Following the Serbia-NATO war, WAN and UNESCO sent a team of experts to the
region to determine the needs of the independent print media. The projects
announced today are the result of their findings.
The Paris-based WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry,
defends and promotes press freedom world-wide. It represents 17,000
newspapers; its membership includes 61 national newspaper associations,
individual newspaper executives in 93 countries, 17 news agencies and seven
regional and world-wide press groups.
