Macedonian Site Takes Satirical Stance on Freedom of Expression Issues  · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

Macedonia has a long tradition of humor, caricatures and satire, including hosting of the World Gallery of Cartoons. With the appearance of new media, many aphorisms and satirical tales are now modified into tweets and Facebook statuses, while the classical forms of caricatures, jokes, and short stories have given way to digitally altered meme images or satirical news articles modeled after The Onion.
Among the leading sources of such satirical news in Macedonia is the section “para-news” of news portal Okno.mk, satirical news site Brejking.net, another humorous site Panika.be, and the well-known portal Koza Nostra. The name of the latter is a play on words, combining the term “Cosa Nostra”, a term often related to Sicilian Mafia in popular culture, and the Macedonan word “koza”, meaning goat, surmounting to “Our Goat” in direct translation.
A recent example [mk] of their work, titled “Journalists from Macedonia and Belarus to Found Association ‘Reporters with Borders'”, refers to the dismal situation of media freedom in this region.
Новинари од меинстрим медиумите во Македонија и во Белорусија револтирани од извештаите на меѓународната организација “Репортери без граници” ќе прават контраздружение “Репортери со граници”. Целта на здружението е да се пишуваат извештаи кои ќе бидат многу пообјективни и авторизирани од владите за да не се доведуваат новинарите во неоријатни конфронтации со своите власти.
- Мораме да се спротивставиме на надворешната пропаганда која се повеќе зема замав а ја предводат разноразни неѓународни организации и организации под контрола на Сорос. Целта е таканаречени независни новинари да ги преземат нашите медиуми. Но, нашето контраздржение ќе ги разобличи овие обиди – велат добро упатени новинари од иницијативниот одбор.
Journalists from the mainstream media in Macedonia and Belarus aggravated by the reports of the international organization “Reporters without Borders” will form a counter-association “Reporters with Borders.” The goal of the association will be to write reports which will be far more objective and authorized by the governments, so the journalist would avoid unpleasant confrontations with their authorities.
“We must stand up to the foreign propaganda which increases under leadership of various international organizations and organizations under control of Soros. Their goal is to have so-called independent journalists take over our media. But our counter-association will expose these attempts,” claim well-informed journalists from the initiative's board.
Macedonia’s and Belarus’ rank on Reporters without Borders’
World Press Freedom Index, 2003-2014
According to the World Press Freedom Index report by Reporters without Borders, in 2013 Macedonia reached a rank of 123, from to the relatively decent rank of 34 in 2009.