By Milos Djorelijevski ,
13:45,
Monday, 02 June 2008
Beta
Beta Press Ltd. is a privately-owned, independent news agency founded by eight Belgrade journalists in 1992. Today, Beta is among the leading media organizations in the region.
Beta has over 650 subscribers from all corners of the globe. This includes virtually every media outlet in Serbia and all the large regional and international media organizations, including the BBC, RFI, Reuters, AFP, DPA, and Voice of America. Government institutions and political organizations, foreign embassies, and international organizations also number among Beta's clients. Beta's standard offer consists of news services in Serbian and English, although a limited number of articles are available in Albanian, Romany, and Hungarian.
To date, Beta has completed over 100 different programs intended to bolster democracy and human rights in both Serbia and the Balkans as a whole. In doing so Beta has worked together with many international, national, and non-government organizations and institutions, including the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX), Swedish Helsinki Committee, Norwegian People's Aid, Medienhilfe, Media-In-Pakt, Open Society Institute, Balkan Trust, governments of France, Germany, and the UK, OSCE, Westminster Foundation for Democracy, European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights, EIDHR, and European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR).
Beta is also the founder of Radio Sto Plus, which covers the Sandzak region, as well as Radio Beta-RFI in Belgrade. For more information on Beta and Beta's activities and products, visit
www.beta.co.yu.
The trial of a criminal group accused of cigarette smuggling during the 1990's and headed by one of the wealthiest individuals in the region, Stanko "Cane" Subotic, began on May 19 before Belgrade's Special Court. (0)
So far, the European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg has passed 17 verdicts against the Serbian state, resulting in somewhat over EUR71,000 being paid out to citizens from the state budget. (0)
In theory, non-government organizations and the media are supposed to be a major driving force in the fight against corruption by directing attention to crooked officials, among other things. In reality, however, Serbian media outlets mostly do nothing more than carry reports on corruption that has already been discovered, while doing nothing in the way of analysis and investigative journalism. (0)
