Just like the rest of the world, the Balkans have not been spared the spread of fake news.

A Council of Europe report on the media landscape of the Balkans states that the region faces an onslaught of ‘fake news, hate speech, and clickbait, resulting in a steep drop in the population’s trust in the media’.

In this context, the public is called upon to be discerning in order to access reliable information. To help with this, we have provided below a list of independent news outlets that work with professional journalists and meet the criteria for press freedom and the journalist code of ethics. In other words, they are committed to producing ‘high-quality, complete, free, independent, and pluralist news’ and are thorough about checking facts and sources.

This is of course not an exhaustive list, and critical thinking is required even for these media outlets.