Addressing reporters who gathered for the ceremony, Josipovic said that they had the right and the duty to evaluate public figures and to criticise them and write about them but that reporters must not express lies.
Facts must be the foundation of every piece of writing and reporters' stories, he said.
The Croatian president called for finding a mechanism which will ensure freedom and professional and physical security for journalists as he found it unacceptable that a reporter might be beaten up and that the attackers were never identified.
Media are those that warn about unlawfulness, Mafia-style behaviour and tax evasion. However, media that does not pay its taxes or service its debts cannot enjoy confidence, he said recalling that many reporters contributed in the past to the detection of a number of problems and to revealing crimes and bad politics.
Josipovic deems the struggle against censorship as one of the most important tasks of the HND.
At the ceremony reporters carried the sign X at their clothes as a symbol of the fight against censorship.
Addressing the event Parliament Speaker Luka Bebic said that free and independent journalism was a precondition for free, democratic and independent society.
Bebic said he was shocked by threats and blackmailing or physical attacks which reporters investigating corruption and organised crime faced.
He said that it was sad that many reporters were exposed to pressure from media companies in which they worked or to pressure coming from big capital.
The HND president Zdenko Duka said that the HND assembly concluded last night that the situation in Croatia's journalism and media was at the lowest level in recent years,