“You’re either with them or against them,” says Ana Marija Ivkovic. “And if you’re against them, you’re seen as a traitor.”
Ana is founder and editor of Alternativna, a small independent Serbian-language digital media in northern Kosovo*.
She and her team of four journalists work in one of the most polarised media environments in Europe. Northern Kosovo is a predominately Serbian-ethnic region, where the Belgrade-aligned Srpska Lista dominates political life and controls many institutional jobs, while the Kosovo government in Pristina has tightened its grip. Speaking against the ruling Srpska List party risks “your livelihood, your social standing, and potentially your safety” according to Ana.
Alternativna exists in the space between these pressures.
Ana founded Alternativna in 2019, after five years covering the Brussels dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia. It was initially launched as a platform to report on neglected community issues, such as culture, arts and local issues that high-politics media ignored, but Ana soon realised there was a critical gap for a media to systematically debunk disinformation. In this region’s hyper-polarised post-conflict environment where memories of ethnic violence remain raw, disinformation is a political tool that can inflame and it spreads fast on social media.
Today, Alternativa combines factchecking with reporting on local governance and community issues. They explain to their audience that having an independent political opinion does not make you a traitor.
“It's us explaining to the audience that they have a right to have their own political opinions,” she says.
Short videos with big reach
Alternativna’s core team of just four journalists, supported by some freelance staff, has built a strong reputation for its work debunking fake news and fact checking narratives circulating in Serbian language media and social media in Kosovo.
They produce short one-minute video explainers and fact-checking content across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube.
They learned early on that debunking videos only got traction with audiences when they are woven into stories readers really cared about – stray dogs, broken roads, municipal budgets and governance.
“Everything that we post is in one-minute-long video format does incredibly well,” Ana says. “We point out the problem. We don't say who is responsible. But when you look at the video, it's clear.”
The numbers are remarkable for such a small team. In a recent 30-day period, Alternativna recorded 2.6 million views on Instagram alone, 65 percent of these from non-followers, all achieved organically without any paid promotion. According to recent research, their TikTok account ranked among the most viewed in all of Kosovo over the past year.
Their biggest viral moment came when Donald Trump claimed to have prevented a war between Kosovo and Serbia – a statement he repeated multiple times without ever explaining. Alternativna’s video unpicking his claim reached over one million views.
“We didn’t just publish the statement,” Ana explains. “We explained that he never explained what it was about, and that nobody ever confirmed anything.”
Another innovation Ana is particularly proud of is Alternativna’s politician ‘property cards’, shareable visual infographics disclosing politicians’ assets. “Nobody had done that before,” she says. Every major independent Serbian-language media outlet in Kosovo has picked up on this story.
The challenge of survival
It is challenging to operate in this region as a small independent Serbian media. Belgrade and Pristina will only fund media that align with their government’s interests. There are many competing media catering for the scattered Kosovan Serb community, and there is a far less funding than previously, given the withdrawal of most US funding.
Alternativna has been 100 percent reliant on international donor funding since its founding. There is no viable path to commercial sustainability. The shrinking Kosovo Serb business community is under pressure from the Kosovo government and cannot sustain advertising.
EED support has been vital in enabling Alternativna to continue to operate and to “deal with the things we need to focus on”, such as continuing to track and monitor media, debunk fake news and other narratives.
The challenges go beyond funding. There is a chronic shortage of young journalists. Most young people in the community prefer better-paid, less demanding institutional jobs.
There is the challenge of language for a Serbian language media in Kosovo. Even though Serbian is one of Kosovo’s official languages, Albanian politicians refuse to answer questions in Serbian, even when they speak it.
There is also the challenge of the constant electoral cycle, which she describes as exhausting.
Then there is the challenge of getting stories. “People often report things to us,” she says. “But when we get back to them, they're not willing to write a statement, even if we publish it anonymously. They’re afraid.”
Consistency building a community
Ana is candid that fake news will always outperform factchecking in raw numbers, but she believes consistency is what matters.
“As soon as you become a space for people to know that you are doing that, that's actually enough,” she says. “They come back to us to check on our debunking stories.”
She is most proud of the trust Alternativna has built with their community. “What I hear, when I talk to people, is that they recognise us as a media that is doing something different,” she says.
“We believe the things that we do are important for our community,” she continues. “Maybe it’s not possible to change everything, but we can make a difference. We can publish 10 stories about stray dogs, and nobody will do anything about it. But the public is informed. At least we're saying who's responsible.”
* This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSC 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence.
This article reflects the views of the grantees featured and does not necessarily represent the official opinion of the EED.
