Setting the Media Free

Post-Electoral Serbia

AIM Belgrade, October 29, 2000

The tumultuous changes that have engulfed all of Serbia have affected news media as well. Those of them that until Oct. 5 unquestioningly backed the regime of Slobodan Milosevic are undergoing major and dramatic staff changes. In many cases, due to manipulations by the former regime, it is not clear to whom the outlets actually belong to. The other big problem is their manner of reporting: Serbian state TV (RTS) and the papers published by the Politika company, for instance, have not changed much in that respect save for the names of politicians whose activities they cover. For over a decade they have been systematically purged of anything that even resembles professionalism. As it appears, the most balanced reporting can still be found in the news media that even before Oct. 5 went under the name of independent. However, exhausted as they are by conditions imposed on their operation by the regime, they are facing a new danger -- competition. And, if all that wasn't enough, foreign investors have appeared on the Serbian media market.

The rebellion in the pro-regime news media began even before Oct. 5. On Oct. 1 the staff of Radio Belgrade's Third Channel, RTV Novi Sad, and a group of 50 journalists of the Vecernje Novosti daily demanded editorial policy changes. Dragoljub Milanovic, RTS director, fired all members of the state TV strike committee.

In municipalities in which the Socialists Party of Serbia (SPS) was in power and in which the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) won in the Sept. 24 election, local media rebelled against the defeated forces even before the formal transfer of power. The system of the United Radio Stations of Serbia, which linked local radio stations from Socialist-run towns to Radio Belgrade and which used to rebroadcast news programs of the state radio, fell apart in the first days of October. Thus, for example, Radio Sabac stopped re-transmitting two such regular programs of Radio Belgrade (Novosti Dana and Dnevnik) on Sept. 30, and replaced them with Radio B92's news broadcasts. The same was done on the next day by another eight local radio stations.

The mainstream Belgrade pro-regime media such as RTS, Politika and Borba, however, were still firmly under control. On the evening of Oct. 4 state TV carried an announcement by the Interior Ministry saying that "individuals from the ranks of Djindjic's pro-NATO party, many of whom are known criminals, violent persons and drug addicts, are inciting, organizing and perpetrating violence against citizens." There was no change in vocabulary or content in the papers published by Politika or in the Borba newspaper. Serbia, however, was already engulfed by a wave of strikes, and the employees of media outlets controlled by the regime began preparations to go on strike. On Oct. 5, the day the DOS had scheduled a big protest rally in front of the federal parliament building in Belgrade to demand the recognition of election results, strikes in Politika and RTS were supposed to begin. That afternoon some thirty policemen in full riot gear entered the RTS building. The same number was deployed in front of the building to prevent anyone from entering.

The events that followed are probably pretty very familiar: the demonstrators forced their way into the federal parliament and set it on fire. Immediately afterwards the people and the now famous bulldozer turned against "TV Bastille," located in the central Takovska Street. The building was set ablaze, the policemen were forced out of it and another state TV building in neighboring Aberdareva Street and beaten up, the mob entered the offices breaking furniture and equipment and looting. Enraged by the lies spread by RTS the protesters got hold of its director, Dragoljub Milanovic, and the editor in chief of the news program, Milorad Komrakov, and almost lynched them.

The "liberation" of other pro-government news media located in downtown Belgrade followed. Politika, Radio Belgrade, and two media outlets earlier taken over by the state -- Radio B92 and Studio B -- fell in quick succession. Politika director Hadzi Dragan Antic and the editor in chief of the Vecernje Novosti newspaper, Dusan Cukic, fled their offices accompanied by armed escort.

Nebojsa Covic, one of the leaders of the DOS, liberated the state TV building in Kosutnjak, wherefrom RTS usually broadcast, and appeared as the first guest of the "New" RTS shortly after 9 p.m. the same evening. All the others freed media outlets continued broadcasting and publication, making a compete U-turn without missing a single step. Some, as the federal TV station Yu Info, BK TV and the Tanjug news agency, for instance, liberated themselves without any outside help. It was shocking and surreal to hear on Radio Belgrade the same voices that until a day ago had denounced the opposition as foreign lackeys and traitors, now incessantly quoting Vojislav Kostunica. Even more shocking was the first page of the Politika on Oct. 6: a huge photograph of Kostunica and a huge headline, "Serbia on Path of Democracy," taking up most of the page. The Politika Ekspres, Vecernje Novosti and Borba underwent a similar transformation. Special places reserved for the names of the editors contained only the following words: "Temporary editorial board."

At the helm of RTS is now its former director, Nebojsa Ristic, Gordana Susa, also a former employee of this media house, editor of the independent TV production VIN and president of the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia (IJAS), is editor of the news program. Until the Serbian government appoints a new RTS managing board, the house will be run by the RTS independent trade union.

State TV is now broadcasting programs produced by independent houses such as independent TV productions VIN, Mreza, ANEM, and this is the best part of its news program. The shows produced by RTS, on the other hand, are still quite poor from a professional viewpoint. Every evening, for instance, RTS airs the Open Studio talk show, and numerous DOS leaders have appeared in it in the past weeks. Their hosts, however, are too humble and conspicuously frightened, they pose leading questions, and they get angry when viewers inquiring about controversial issues, doing their best to help their guests avoid answering them. The same is the case when a guest is not a DOS member, but is in a high position. Thus Yugoslav Army Chief of Staff Nebojsa Pavkovic and head of the State Security Service, Rade Markovic, were given the full treatment: admiration, fawning and assistance in avoiding slippery ground. On the other hand, representatives of the outgoing regime are frequently subject to very humiliating treatment. Thus senior Socialist official Ivica Dacic could not finish a single sentence because he was constantly interrupted by his host, a mouse unexpectedly turned into a lion. The entirely unprofessional attitude of all the hosts of this show is so obvious that even some DOS leaders demanded that it end. But to no avail. They are so used to such practices that they do not know another way to do it. It is interesting to add that except for Milorad Komrakov no other RTS official has resigned, and Dragoljub Milanovic is formally still its director.

As opposed to RTS, state-run publications were not destroyed, torched, or looted. On the hellish afternoon of Oct. 5, when thousands of people were roaming the streets in Belgrade in search of a media outlet they could liberate, in front of the Politika building in Makedonska Street there were only some thirty people. When about as many policemen left without offering any resistance, they entered the building in which they found very few people. After passers-by liberated their place of employment, Politika's workers showed up, formed a crisis committee and began preparing the paper. This is how it went until Oct. 13, when the managing board from the pre-revolutionary period, chaired by Dragan Tomic, a Socialist party senior official and head of the powerful Jugopetrol company, after receiving Hadzi Dragan Antic's written resignation, unanimously appointed journalist Aleksandar Tijanic, former head of TV Politika and BK TV, and a former information minister in the government of Mirko Marjanovic, as acting director of the Politika company. There was another candidate for this post, long-time foreign correspondent of Politika Darko Ribnikar, proposed by the trade unions and the crisis committee. Politika, the oldest daily paper in the Balkans, was founded by Ribnikar's ancestors. The employees refused to have Tijanic appointed as their director. DOS official Goran Svilanovic, temporarily in charge of the news media sector, resigned over this issue and the Commercial Court registered Darko Ribnikar as Politika's acting director on Oct. 20.

Describing the situation in the Politika daily, Vojin Partonic, coordinator of the paper's temporary editorial board (that is, acting editor-in-chief), in an interview in the daily Danas said that "it turned out that journalists from the Domestic Events Section did not know anyone from the Socialist Party of Serbia or the Yugoslav Left, nor had a single phone number to contact them. They never phoned anyone to take a statement. The articles arrived from somewhere, and the journalists had nothing to do with them," says Partonic.

The Vecernje Novosti was not professionally destroyed to such an extent. Most of its employees went on strike before Oct. 5. After Dusan Cukic fled, they entered their offices and began preparing the best daily paper in Belgrade. The paper is neither biased nor humble, they have room for the Socialists as well, and for news that cannot be found in any other daily. Journalists in the Cultural Events Section on Oct. 11 publicly apologized to "all artists and other cultural workers whose attainments and efforts were not properly covered in the past months because of censorship." That the situation in this paper is not ideal either was shown by two examples. The first involves Ratko Radetic, the new photography editor who, according to information presented at a press conference in Media Center, was the one who "personally demanded" that two identical photographs from a Leftist campaign rally in Berane be pasted together and published as a single snapshot, so as "to increase the number of Slobodan Milosevic's followers." Radetic now claims that he did that deliberately to provoke public outcry. The second involves Pera Simic, "who pressed charges against four of his colleagues for violating the honor and prestige of the former Yugoslav president," Slobodan Milosevic, and who is now the author of a serial published by the daily under the title "The Fall of the Monarch from Dedinje."

The daily Borba also underwent a transformation, though after the 1995 state takeover, not one of the journalists employed by it at the time remained with the paper. Some fifty journalists that were expelled five years ago and later worked in the Nasa Borba daily, tried to enter their former offices on Oct. 8, but were prevented by the Borba's new management. Afterwards they informed the public that the Borba will continue publication with the same team of journalists and editors that worked under the management Yugoslav Left Directorate member Zivorad Djordjevic.

Manojlo Vukotic, temporary coordinator of the Borba, told the Danas daily on Oct. 18 the following: "I spoke today with a delegation of Nasa Borba employees, and later they went around saying I wouldn't receive them. I asked them to be patient, to wait and see what will become of the paper; whether it will be a daily or a weekly. The problem is that the Borba is losing money and its circulation is only several thousand copies. Who can employ new people and cover enormous costs in such conditions?" Vukotic said. The Commercial Court on Oct. 19 started liquidation procedures against the Borba, and appointed Vukotic as temporary administrator.

Radio B92 had its confiscated equipment returned and its former legal status restored, and also "inherited" from the former illegal management a TV frequency (the channel was initially called TV Srbijasume 92, and later, TV Tera), something they could not have hoped for in their wildest dreams.

Independent publications, however, especially the daily papers, faced a very unpleasant position. Dangers coming from the Radical-brokered Public Information Law, the Yugoslav Left-generated tricks of the Commercial Court and the selective shortages of newsprint were eliminated, but a new danger emerged in the form of competition from the former state-run papers, which are better-staffed, have a developed correspondent network, their own buildings, printers and distribution and sales services. As a response, the Glas Javnosti acquired a slightly sensationalist slant, and the Danas began searching for a better position on the market by becoming more critical of the new authorities, Montenegrin leadership and pro-regime journalists, who had switched allegiance overnight. The Blic, for example, has found itself completely in the shadow of the Vecernje Novosti.

A three-member committee composed of representatives of the Socialist Party of Serbia, Serbian Renewal Movement and the DOS, is in charge of the Information Ministry in the transitional government of Serbia. The DOS offered its seat to the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia (NUNS). The NUNS accepted the offer and appointed as co-minister Biserka Matic, president of the NUNS Court of Honor and former journalist of the Politika.

In the wake of Oct. 5, the NUNS has become hyperactive. One of its first tasks was to demand the release from prison of journalists Miroslav Filipovic and Zoran Lukovic and an investigation into the murder of Slavko Curuvija. Miroslav Filipovic, a correspondent of Danas and the AFP news agency, sent to prison seven months ago after being convicted of espionage and disseminating false information, was released on Oct. 10, after the Supreme Military Court cancelled a lower court's ruling. Zoran Lukovic, journalist of the Dnevni Telegraf daily, who was sent to prison two months ago, for allegedly slandering former Serbian deputy premier Milovan Bojic, was released on Oct. 21. He was pardoned by incumbent Serbian President Milan Milutinovic. The start of the investigation into the murder of Slavko Curuvija, owner of the Dnevni Telegraf daily, will probably be delayed for some time.

The NUNS executive board recently took possession of the House of Journalists of Serbia, a building in the central Generala Zdanova Street in Belgrade, to which until then the pro-government Association of Journalists of Serbia, chaired by Milorad Komrakov, lay exclusive claim. The NUNS stressed that no one will be evicted from the building, and that the offices will be placed at the equal disposal of all journalists and journalist associations in Serbia.

At the beginning of the campaign for the Dec. 23 legislative elections, the press is extensively dealing with the astronomical salaries and privileges of the former heads of pro-regime news media, members of the Socialist party and Yugoslav Left, and debts they have left to their successors. Also in focus are speculations as to whether the former director of the Politika company has found refuge in Prijepolje, with Bishop Filaret, a priest who loves his Kalashnikov so much that he once publicly stated: "My machine gun is my favorite companion," and whether Stefan Grubac, editor in chief of Channel 3 of the state TV network, had fled in a Peugeot belonging to the company. Before the issue of the legality of the current management of the media organizations in question can be discussed, ownership issues in them should be clarified. Studio B, Vecernje Novosti and Borba were first privatized, then taken over by the state once more, and in their cases the Commercial Court will have its hands full and will have to make a considerable effort to determine the real state of affairs.

While it is still unclear of who owns what in the media sector, foreign investors willing to put money into the local media have appeared. Thus on Oct. 29, Austria's Mitzui, co-owner of the Blic daily, became a minority holder of the Belgrade Pink TV station. The owner of this TV, which has been the most popular station in Serbia for years, is Zeljko Mitrovic, a member of the Yugoslav Left main board. BK TV, owned by the Karic brothers, who are Milosevic's close economic and political allies of long standing, is negotiating with the Greek Inter Sat company. Inter Sat is allegedly interested in "making it possible for BK TV, by purchasing a part of BK Telecom, to join the Balkan Television Project, which is initially supposed to cover the territory of Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Greece," the Fonet news agency reported.

These business moves have prompted the Association of the Independent Electronic Media (ANEM), whose chief member is Radio B92, to demand that the authorities prevent rapid ownership transformation of the media outlets that used to support the regime. These media, according to the ANEM, are in this way trying to preserve the frequencies they were illegally granted. The ANEM also called for an immediate revision of all frequency licenses issued in conditions of political pressure. When both governments (Yugoslav and Serbian) are formed, as well as all ministries and state agencies, and when the Commercial Court, this time around hopefully once and for all, determines who the owners of certain media outlets are, all these changes will finally make it to the ground covered by the law. But this will only mark the beginning of the time of change for the media in Serbia. The market should have a major say in creating the media map in the republic. As far as the state-run media are concerned, they have yet to return to the path of professionalism.

Zoran B. Nikolic

(AIM)