MCCM
RESILIENCE
OUR MEDIA
Written by: Stefan Janjić
“I found this advertisement for a joint medication on the internet, can you fact-check it?”, “This influencer claims it’s possible to buy a house in Italy for one euro. Sounds suspicious”, “I’m sending you news about a man who claims to be the only Serbian samurai. Is it even possible to become a samurai in the 21st century?”… Such reader reports arrive daily at the editorial office of FakeNews Tragač, a fact-checking portal founded in 2017 by the Novi Sad School of Journalism. Since then, through our own daily media monitoring and thanks to numerous reader reports, we have debunked hundreds of pieces of disinformation and conducted dozens of complex investigations on bots, fake identities, pseudoscience, foreign policy, and more. Over the past year, the editorial team has been awarded multiple times for its work.
The “Saša Sredanović” case
In 2023, Stefan Kosanović received the Annual Media Literacy Award “Dragan Janjić” (Student category) for his article about fake sports psychologist Saša Sredanović, who had long been building an imaginary biography in public. In this analysis, Stefan demonstrated the use of various fact-checking techniques, with the research process lasting several months.
It turned out that all football clubs Saša Sredanović claimed to have worked for – Real Betis, Olimpija Ljubljana, Athletic Bilbao, and Barcelona – denied any collaboration with her when contacted by FN Tragač. Furthermore, Sredanović claimed on social media to have completed clinical psychology at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, specifically at “Maastricht University of Clinical Psychology”, but no such institution exists. Finally, when we attempted to contact Sredanović, our editorial office received a “pre-lawsuit warning” from a supposed law firm called Zejaković. This firm does not exist, which was confirmed by the Belgrade Bar Association, whose logo was misused in the “warning”. The whole story attracted significant public attention, as dozens of media outlets across the region had fallen for Saša Sredanović’s false claims.
This analysis was later ranked among the top three sports stories by young journalists worldwide by the International Sports Press Association. Kosanović received special commendation for his investigation from this professional association, and his story about Saša Sredanović was also the second-best in the category of young journalists publishing content in written format.
Disinformation about the European Union
We were also proud in October 2023 when Ivan Subotić, deputy editor of FakeNews Tragač, won second place for his analysis of manipulative narratives about the European Union, in a competition organized by the Ministry of European Integration.
The analysis showed that deceivers most often rely on existing negative perceptions about the EU, while using citizens’ positive sentiment towards Russia and their fear of supposedly “corrupted” Western values. The discursive strategies of deceivers include linking the EU with Nazism, targeting the LGBT community, manipulative comparisons of the EU with Serbia or other geopolitical factors, overemphasizing instability within the EU, alleged EU “hypocrisy,” and spreading fear about EU regulations and institutional decisions.
Branimir Nestorović’s pseudoscientific paradise
In May 2024, Jelena Jovović and Stefan Janjić received the Annual “Dragan Janjić” Award (Media Professionals category) for their analysis of the book “Between Two Worlds” by Dr. Branimir Nestorović. Nestorović is a pulmonologist who gained (and later monetized) great fame during the coronavirus pandemic, often expressing views on scientific fields in which he has no expertise. He transferred his popularity to the political field, first as a collaborator of the right-wing coalition led by the Dveri party, and then as the top candidate on the “We – Voice of the People” list.
In “Between Two Worlds,” Nestorović discusses human photosynthesis, sound healing, proving the existence of parallel worlds, the matrix, effects of grounding on human health (walking barefoot), psi phenomena, morphogenetic fields, and healing energy. The conducted analysis comprehensively showed the multi-layered danger of inadequate presentation of scientific results, incorrect interpretation of scientific postulates, plagiarism, and promotion of pseudoscience.
As stated in the explanation, the “Dragan Janjić” award jury believed that at a time when popular science is booming and modern media are opening space for various self-proclaimed experts and analysts, the work of Jelena Jovović and Stefan Janjić represents an example of how media literacy can serve as a survival guide in the world of pseudoscience and conspiracy theories.
Self-deception and wilful ignorance
Besides fact-checking, FakeNews Tragač also promotes critical thinking and scientific literacy. To this end, we launched the “Orbit” section, which illuminates the problem of cognitive traps from various angles. Gorana Janjić, a physician, is engaged at Tragač as a consultant on health-related issues. In April 2024, she published a blog addressing the concept of “wilful ignorance” – exploring why people disregard symptoms that could indicate the onset of more serious illnesses and what excuses they use to justify not wanting to see a doctor. The text also analysed what role the media can play in combating this self-deception. The blog won 3rd prize in the Galenika’s competition for the best media publications on the importance of prevention.
Where to next
The FakeNews Tragač editorial team constantly strives to understand the needs, doubts, and even fears of its readers. From the sea of misinformation surrounding us, we try to focus on those that can cause the most harm. Readers have recognized the relevance of these topics and continuously contribute to our work by sending reports about what they find suspicious. To better understand our audience (both current and potential), we organized a series of focus groups this summer, and an innovative pilot project using the eye-tracking method is coming up, which will show how the audience approaches our texts and what could be improved in this area. The awards we have received in the past year are a great incentive to continue our research even more ambitiously, but the support of our audience means just as much to us. When you gain someone’s trust in an era of widespread scepticism, it’s truly a big deal.
