Milorad Pupovac, the president of the Serb National Council in Croatia, which is also a publisher of weekly Novosti, talks about the importance of policies that protect media both from political influence and from unfriendly market. Here is what he said, in an interview for SEE Media Observatory:

The most important thing is public interest, as an idea and as a valid criterion for performing journalistic work. Second important thing is education for an independent, free, professional and ethical journalism and the third is, when it comes to a small countries such as ours, keeping journalism independent by using special funds,  funds which state provides for both alternative media and public media, to protect them from the huge dangers on the local and global media market (...)

First of all, journalists themselves need to advocate for the protection of the public service broadcasters through their branch associations, professional associations, and through their work. On the other hand, politics must protect public services from itself and from constant attempts of further privatization (...) because it is actually a kind of patriotism, if i can put it that way, a kind of responsibility towards their own country and on the other hand responsibility to the public good. If we have that then we will naturally create the conditions and space for public media. It is also extremely important that the political structures reach consensus that public media will not be transformed into loot of their political campaigns or of their fight for power; because if it happens then we will have the problem with media.

This [SEE Media Observatory] is certainly one of the most professional, the most extensive and the most analytical project that I know of. It is very important to see the situation in the media and it is important to review the media policy in countries of South Eastern Europe. What would be additionally important is to continue the research of the phenomenon of corruption and lack of transparency in media policies and media industries. Furthermore, it would be very important to see how does the educational system work when it comes to journalism and media business in general. Whether it actually serves the development of media policy of emancipation, as we would prefer, or the system actually supports the transfer of the general trend of privatisation and banalisation - to the media, he concluded.

Note: the video is in local language.