“I truly believe that free media is an absolute cornerstone of democracy, and they are under pressure from various sources throughout the region today," said U.S. Ambassador to BiH Maureen Cormack at the launch of USAID’s Balkan Media Assistance Program on January 30, 2018.

The three-year, $7 million project – which will be implemented in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia – will help make these media practitioners more competitive and strengthen the sustainability of the independent media sector across the region. The program will also provide outlets and media partners with more substantial and stable resources to operate as viable enterprises, engage wider audiences and expand their reach within the region, and foster stronger partnerships to advance solutions on common challenges, particularly in the digital space.

At the event, Željko Ivanović, President of the Regional Media Association, said he was shocked that the situation in BiH was as bad as in Montenegro. Media in all five of these Balkan countries survived dictatorship or war in the 1990s, but they now need help to survive democracy. With this assistance and support – even under economic and political pressure – they will be able to carry out their main mission: to provide citizens with objective and factual information about what is happening in the country, the region, and the world, he said.