Adjudication of the Press Council of Kosovo on the complaint of mr.sc. Ferat Shala, Manager of “Trepça – Enterprise administered by KPA versus Bota Sot newspaper.
20 November 2009In its regular meeting held 27 October 2009, upon reviewing the complaint of mr.sc Ferat Shala Manager of Trepça – Enterprise under the administration of KPA versus Bota Sot, in relation to an article published on 5 August 2009 entitled: “Trepça is getting robbed in the middle of the day” Press Council of Kosovo rendered the following
ADJUDICATION
to not uphold the complaints
REASONING
An article published in Bota Sot on 05 July 2009, entitled: “Trepça is getting robbed in the middle of the day!”, is in relation to transportation of ores from Stanterg with trucks hired by the buyer of ores (minerals), namely the firm “Glenkor” through Italian company “Pakorini” which chose trucks with Serbian number plates for transportation of ores from Stanterg to Tivar Port, where it is loaded into ships to reach the final destination.
In general, the article did not violate the Press Code as it provided proper information on the transportation of ores with the respective trucks, and it gave the possibility to all relevant parties to pronounce themselves in relation to this issue and acted in compliance with the clause 2 of Article II of the Press Code which states that “Journalists and editors, shall in principle be based in identifiable sources of information”. In the concrete case, the newspaper used identifiable sources of responsible persons, who state that there is no robbery of Trepça whatsoever going on, but rather a legal business based in legal contracts.
However, the Board of PCK assessed that the title: “Trepça is getting robbed in the middle of the day!” although with an exclamation mark at the end, is inconsistent with the text in the article, which clearly states many times that the ores is not being robbed but is sold and transported legally. PCK found that the title is leading and should have been modified so as to be consistent with the text of the article.
While reviewing the response that was sent by Trepça to Bota Sot following the publishing of the article, which was not published by the newspaper, Press Council found that the response does not give new facts and clarifications and that it does not refer to the respective article, but the response was rather full of insults against the newspaper, what is in contradiction with the Press Code which does not allow for insults and intolerance by any party.
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