During the month of September, there was some misinformation about some events that were published by portals and other pages on social networks.

The main event of the month, the attack on the village of Banjska in Zveçan, produced several instances of fake news, from 09:00 in the morning, about the number of killings of policemen and members of the group and disinformation that the Kosovo Police has taken some citizens hostage, a local Serb in the north of the country.

Pictures of the war between Ukraine and Russia were used to illustrate and produce fake news that it allegedly happened in the north of the country. In the media monitoring of the attack in Banjska of Zveçan, there was also news about the killing of a member of the group that participated in the attack on the Kosovo Police, but in fact, the person in the photo was a soldier killed in Nagorno-Karabakh.

About the attack in Banjska, there was fake news about the Kosovo Security Force. Footage shot a long time ago, in the city of Peja, was used and republished because it is current, assuming that the KSF has headed towards the four northern municipalities.

During the month of September, there was not only misinformation about the events in the north of the country. Several fake news stories were recorded about the meeting in Brussels between the delegations of Kosovo and Serbia in the framework of the dialogue for the normalization of relations between the two states.

The monitoring of the Serbian media on September 14, 2023, showed that some media formulated headlines and misquoted the Kosovar side for the failure of the meetings in Brussels. Thus, public opinion in Serbia did not have accurate and fair information about the events in the European capital.

In other news, it was reported that KFOR has taken control of the situation in Banjska. KFOR has denied this information, and has since been evaluated as false.

Incorrect information was not only produced by the media during the month of September. A fake photo was also distributed by the deputy prime minister, Emilja Rexhepi through social networks, alluding that the municipality of Sarajevo has been illuminated with the flag of Kosovo. However, fact-checkers showed that the photo was, in fact, fake. For this published information, the Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo did not give any explanation.

By publishing unverified information, the media often violates the basic principles of journalism, accuracy, but also the right to answer, of the parties involved in the reporting.

There is a mechanism for self-regulation of online media in the country, the Council of Written Media of Kosovo (KMSHK). On a monthly basis, this body issues decisions where it finds media violations during the reporting of those who are members of the KMSHK.

In order for the media to be objective, KMSHK has a code of professional ethics which obliges the media to verify the information before each report. However, as is often the case, some online media do not respect it and blatantly violate the code. Some of them publish pictures without obtaining the consent of the facts, report one-sidedly and do not give space to the responding parties.

In order to avoid misinformation, all the media have to do is to respect the basic principles of journalism, and to respect the ethical code of KMSHK.

By producing false news, the media, in addition to losing credibility in the public, fabricate a wrong opinion among the readers themselves about certain events. This is more dangerous in cases of crises such as the September 24 attack in Banjska i Zveçani. The situation there was used for disinformation, which they tried to use to incite tension and provoke the local citizens in that area.

Fake news also has political goals, some of them, which are the public for the north of the country, aim to destabilize the country. With this, they told the Serbian citizens there that the Police and the Government of Kosovo do not intend to protect them, this has also happened in the case of Banjska.

The security sector and fake news about this sector are mostly related to the north of Kosovo. Kosovo Police, KSF and KFOR often deny fake news published about them. But the risk remains great because the first information or the first disinformation cannot be stopped.

The media in Kosovo should pay more attention to the translation of news that mainly comes from Russia, Serbia and also from Iran. Attention should also be paid to the copying of news from portals in North Macedonia and Albania whose source is unknown. Because many times our media copies the news in the Albanian language without knowing their source and the narrative that makes them up.

Also, citizens should pay attention when reading news or information, check its source and judge correctly if what they are reading is true.