Veran Matic - President of the Jury

Veran Matic (born in 1962 in Sabac), editor-in-chief of informative programme and chairman of the Board of Directors of B92.

Chairman of the Board of Directors of B92, editor-in-chief of informative programme and president of B92 Fund. Since 1984 he has been engaged in the field of alternative and youth media in Belgrade, Zagreb and Ljubljana. He began his career in NTV Studio B, and in May 1989 he founded Radio B92, the first independent radio station in Serbia. Under his guidance, this station has developed numerous activities in the last 25 years, but the most important ones are: radio, television and website.

Mr Matic established Internet centre - OpenNet, the first Internet provider in the country. He is the director of Samizdat B92 - a publishing house with numerous titles, including books of research and commentary on the wars in the former Yugoslavia and minority rights and started three magazines and REX cultural centre, a venue for plays and events within the alternative and progressive cultural scene. He has won many national and international awards and the most significant ones are: the Knight of the French Legion of Honor medal, the highest French decoration in recognition for his persistent and ongoing fight as the head of B92 for media freedom; one of the fifty World Press Freedom Heroes, proclaimed at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting and one of hundred Global Leaders of Tomorrow; Annual Award of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ); MTV Free Your Mind Award etc.
Mr Matic was the founder and the head of ANEM (Association of Independent Electronic Media) which currently gathers around 50 independent local radio and TV stations across the country. He is one of the most persistent fighters for media freedom and freedom of expression and winner of many prestigious international awards for his work during the last 25 years (http://www.b92.net/o_nama/nagrade.php).
He is the president of the Board of Directors of B92 Fund which deals with social, humanitarian, cultural and educational projects. Among other things, he is a SEEMO Coordinator for Serbia

Publishing activities:

• Co-editor of the book with Dejan Ilic:
Truths, Responsibilities, Reconciliations: The Example of Serbia (Dejan Ilic and Veran Matic, ed., [Beograd: Samizdat B92, 2000])
• Co-author: Shaping the Network Society, prepared by Douglas Schuler and Peter Day – Chapter number 8, Civil networking in a hostile environment: Experiences in former Yugoslavia [17]
• Veran Matic’s articles have appeared in The New York Times, The New York Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, Index on Censorship, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Le Monde, The Nation, and elsewhere.

He is the chairman of the Commission for investigating killings of journalists which deals with solving the murders of fellow journalists and thereby unique in the world, consisting of journalists, members of the security services and police members. The Commission already has tangible results because the indictment for the murder of Slavko Curuvija has been raised and it is working hard on two more cases of murdered journalists. The Commission's work is also important for putting an end to the practice of impunity for the murders of journalists in Serbia.

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