The Media Council for Self-Regulation (MSS) continued its cooperation with Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on the implementation of the Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI). Within this cycle, MSS was a direct mentor and coordinator, and ten more media from Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia were put through the self-evaluation process.
The program is implemented in the Western Balkans and Turkey as part of the UNESCO program “Building Trust in Media in the Southeast Europe: Supporting Journalism as a Public Good.”
JTI is one of the most significant international mechanisms for strengthening professional, ethical and transparent standards in modern journalism, a global ISO-type standard, developed in 2019 under the auspices of the European Committee for Standardization (CEN-CENELEC) and registered under CWA 17493, which, through 130 criteria in 18 clauses, does not evaluate individual content, but editorial processes, ownership, funding sources and accountability mechanisms.
In a region characterized by strong political, economic and security pressures on the media, this program has a particularly important role in restoring public trust and strengthening the resilience of professional journalism.
It is the second Fast Track cycle in the region, carried out during the first half of 2026, which follows on from the first edition, which resulted in the first JTI certification in Turkey, for the Bianet portal.
In this edition, a total of 20 media from the region and Turkey received the support of local partners, press councils and media experts, and MSS directly mentored ten of them.
In this year's cycle, MSS worked directly with ten newsrooms. From Montenegro, Portal Analitika, M portal, Standard and Fokalizator are included; from Bosnia and Herzegovina Raport, Plural, Hercegovina.info, Depo Portal and Istina Media; and FoNet agency from Serbia.
When choosing media, MSS opted for newsrooms that have proven themselves to be professional, trying to make the scope of their activities different from smaller portals and agencies, such as FoNet, to portals that combine literature and social engagement, and through their columnists shape political and social reality and react to it, such as Fokalizator in Montenegro.
The publication of the transparency report is only one of the steps in the process of obtaining the certificate. The report is automatically generated based on the questionnaire and publicly displays the responses of the media and the level of compliance with each individual criterion of the standard. At that stage, the answers have not yet been independently verified, the verification is the subject of a final, optional certification conducted by an accredited auditor.
The importance of the JTI process and the role of self-regulatory bodies were also the topic of the regional conference in Sarajevo, held from June 22 to 24, 2026, where JTI director, Benjamin Sabbah, met with representatives of media councils from Montenegro, Albania and Turkey. On that occasion, the MSS presented its experience from working with newsrooms, which showed that the media accepted the cooperation with satisfaction, aware of the importance of self-evaluation and the need for the region to harmonize with developments in the European Union in this field (EMFA, tenders).
“The JTI program encouraged the media to work on their own professionalization and on more consistent respect for the code of journalists in their countries. For us as a media council, it turns self-regulation from a reactive into a capacity-building instrument and gives member media the credibility of transparency that strengthens public trust”, said Ranko Vujović, executive secretary of the MSS during the conference in Sarajevo.
According to Reporters Without Borders, the JTI standard is used today by more than 2,600 media in 135 countries, and in the Balkans region, more than 160 media organizations are involved in the initiative. By participating in this process, the media from Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia offer their audience a reliable and independent landmark in an increasingly complex media landscape.
