In the last three years of the economic crisis in Croatia, over 200 media-sector employees have lost their jobs, while salaries have dropped 20 per cent on average, Croatian Journalists' Association (HND) president Zdenko Duka said at the association's 53rd annual meeting on Friday.
After daily newspapers reported an increase in circulation last year, this year saw a decline in circulation of between five and ten per cent and advertising income dropped further.
Duka said that the difficult situation in the media sector was manifested in the folding of the daily newspaper Vjesnik and the weekly news magazines Nacional and Forum. He warned of growing "tabloidisation of the media" as more and more media focused on entertainment content, while socially relevant journalism was diminishing.
Although Internet media are on the rise, the problem is that advertising in the Internet media does not exceed five or six per cent, Duka said. He warned that the Ministry of Culture was slow in preparing a media strategy and amending media legislation.
The main task of the HND is to protect media freedoms, freedom of speech, professional freedoms of journalists, and media quality, Duka said.
