The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection Rodoljub Sabic on the occasion of the tomorrow's World Press Freedom Day, in his letters addressed to the presidents of the Journalists Association of Serbia (UNS), the Independent Journalists Association of Serbia (NUNS) and the Independent Journalists Association of Vojvodina (NDNV) congratulated all the journalists of Serbia on their day, 03 May.

In his congratulations, the Commissioner wished journalists to achieve many goals that are important both for journalists and the media and for the entire society.

With regard to that, the Commissioner particularly emphasized the need to achieve transparency of the media ownership, the access of the public to all the information on financing the media from the sources of public funds and other prospective possibilities of exerting influence on the media, fighting self-censorship and the 'phenomenon' of conflicts in the sphere of electronic media, including the attacks on some websites and the activities of the structures called 'bots' etc., and particularly hindering the increasing tabloidization of the media and the society, followed by the notorious 'leakage' of the various 'confidential information' towards some media with the simultaneous inaccessibility for other media.

Confirming the readiness of his associates and his readiness to provide utmost help within his competences in realization of their function, he emphasized that the role of the government in resolving all these issues is extremely significant and estimated that it is essential that the contribution should be provided both by journalists and the media. That is particularly referred to the activities of professional journalists associations that would be obliged to reduce the large gap between worthy, professional, ethical standards written into the journalists' code of ethics and the practical activities of some media and 'media' workers who practically do not relate to those standards.

The Commissioner wished journalists a higher degree of personal safety, emphasizing that the role of the government is decisive and that it certainly involves punishing all those who threaten the security of journalists and with regard to that, expressed his regrets that after several years the instigators and the perpetrators of the murder of Slavko Curuvija, Dada Vujasinovic and Milan Pantic have not been detected and prosecuted.