Serbian Media ‘Lost Public Trust’ Amid School Shooting Hysteria

A year after a mass shooting at a Belgrade school left ten dead, Aidan White, head of the Ethical Journalism Network, says Serbian media made ethical blunders in rushing to publish sensationalist accounts without respecting the young survivors.

The first reports on the morning of May 3, about a gunshot near an elementary school in the central Belgrade district of Vracar, were reminiscent of many other gang-related shootings in the city.

But the information that followed came as a genuine shock: the shooter was a 13-year-old boy, a pupil at the Vladislav Ribnikar elementary school, and he had opened fire on his fellow pupils inside the school itself.

Amid the chaos in and around the school, turmoil erupted in the Serbian media too. For many hours, the only officially confirmed information was the shooter’s age and the fact that he had arrested - everything else that was reported was speculation, exaggeration or pure fabrication.

Media outlets were speculating about the number of victims, and some even reported that a history teacher had been killed (she was shot and seriously wounded, but survived).

Even media outlets considered respectable in Serbia were sending so-called push notifications to readers, urging them: “Watch the arrest of the pupil who opened fire at the school in the centre of Belgrade.” Unsupported claims about the boy’s motives for the shooting circulated for hours, along with interviews with his tearful schoolmates.

The media frenzy erupted because such an incident had never been seen before in Serbia: a teenage schoolboy shoots dead ten people - nine fellow pupils born between 2009 and 2011, and one private security guard. But in their haste to grab images and quotes and compete with their rivals, news media flouted journalistic principles and got facts badly wrong.

Aidan White, president of the London-based Ethical Journalism Network, believes that cases like the Vladislav Ribnikar school shooting are “an example of the catastrophe that follows when news media, faced with sensational events, abandon their ethics in the rush to be first with the news”.

“The inaccurate reports of numbers killed and wrong identity of victims in the Ribnikar case highlights that media were out of control and lost all respect for the truth, humanity and public interest journalism,” White told BIRN in an interview conducted by email.

“This happens when media get caught up in a race to publish information without restraint. They end up telling stories that are not true, and which damage vulnerable people such as children. They become unreliable and untrustworthy,” he added.

‘Media need to keep their heads’

Ambulance cars stand ready as police officers block a street near the Vladislav Ribnikar elementary school in Belgrade, Serbia, May 2023. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANDREJ CUKIC

Speculation about the exact number of children killed in the shooting continued for a couple of hours, in parallel with the panic on the ground, with parents who were not able to reach their children and find out if they were safe, injured or dead.

White explained that “this happens most of all in the first couple of hours after the story breaks”.

“This is the most dangerous period when media need to keep their heads. Journalists need to stick to core principles – to verify information, check facts, and not to follow rumours on social media,” he said.

After the perpetrator’s name was leaked from a source that remains unknown, a new frenzy erupted. Photos of the 13-year-old – some with his face obscured, others clearly showing his identity – were published right across the media, as well as photos of the arrest of his father.

The boy’s father happens to be a well-known doctor, so that led to more reports about him, with quotes from former colleagues and neighbours of the family.

Meanwhile a screenshot of a fake Instagram account purported to be that of the perpetrator spread through social media and the profile photo from the false account ended up on the front page of one leading Serbian newspaper.

White argued that “the rush to publish is the most dangerous impulse in this moment of crisis”.

“But what is needed is slower journalism. We wait until we have verified the facts, until we have vetted and assessed the pictures, and until we have interviews with survivors that are respectful of their personal welfare,” he urged.

Comparisons to the Breivik killings

Cameramen take footage of each other working in front of a building on the Norwegian Utoya Island on October 2011, the first day the island was accessable for all media after a shooting took place here on July 2011. Photo: EPA/TERJE BENDIKSBY * NORWAY OUT *

Over a decade ago, White and the Ethical Journalism Network were working with Norwegian media on the ethical challenges raised by the Utoya massacre in 2011, when neo-Nazi gunman Anders Breivik killed 77 people.

Although the two incidents happened in different countries and contexts, some of the issues raised were similar.

White argued that although Norwegian media also made mistakes, they “tried to keep to the facts, to avoid speculation, to avoid causing panic in the public mind and, above all, to respect the victims of violence and their families”.

He pointed out that media in Norway did not speculate about the perpetrator’s identity before official information was made available, but “they did make it clear the perpetrator was not a migrant or of Islamic origin, but was a Norwegian”.

“The last thing media should do is to create a hate figure, or demonise someone. Justice will come, but it takes time and media should not do anything that creates in the public mind hatred of others who may be associated with the perpetrator,” White said.

“In Norway not naming, but making it clear it was not a member of a minority helped avoid causing bias and public anger against racial and religious minorities at a time when international terrorism was in the news everywhere,” he added.

The principle of ‘do no harm’

People leave flowers and light candles for the victims in front of the Vladislav Ribnikar elementary school in Belgrade, Serbia, May 2023. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANDREJ CUKIC

Besides naming the perpetrator, the second important challenge while covering such violent crimes is how to approach and deal with the survivors or direct witnesses.

While covering the Utoya massacre, White says, Norwegian media “tried to balance the importance of the story with the need to show compassion and empathy with victims”.

He recalled an example of a journalist from one private TV station who went to a local hotel where survivors of the mass shooting and their families had gathered.

“She stood on a table in the middle of the room and announced that she was ready to carry out interviews, but only if people wanted to talk and only when young people who witnessed the massacre were accompanied by parents or an adult,” White said.

He explained how the journalist set up a camera outside the hotel and then waited to be approached. When some of the survivors, including children, came up to her, “she was careful not to get them to relive the trauma of the horror they had witnessed”

“The first principle was ‘do no harm’. The story is important but not so important that it should cause fresh trauma for victims,” White said.

Next to the Vladislav Ribnikar elementary school in Belgrade is another school, the Third Belgrade Gymnasium, so when the shooting happened, children from both schools were outside the buildings, terrified and upset.

In that situation many journalists were conducting interviews with children in tears, without an adult present, traumatising them again while also reporting their speculation about the motive for the shooting.

In the Ribnikar case, White said, Serbian media outlets seems to have “lost their heads”.

“They panicked and in their competition with other media forgot about their ethical values. They should have organised interviews with children in a safe and secure place,” he argued.

“The first priority in any coverage of a massacre or violence, particularly where it affects children or other vulnerable groups, is not to make matters worse. But to show humanity and empathy, no story is worth sacrificing a journalist’s duty to respect the rights of victims,” he insisted.

In November 2013, Norwegian journalist’s Asne Seierstad’s book One of Us was published, based on the Breivik trial court records but also interviews with survivors and families. According to White “it was measured and sensitive and helped tell the story again, with people able to discuss how it affected their lives”.

“It may be that a similar exercise will be useful in Serbia. Certainly, media need to regain public trust and need to show that they can report with sensitivity to the way that these events have changed people’s lives,” he concluded.