MEDIA IN TRANSITION

Introduction:

Edited by Igor Mekina (AIM Slovenia)

Introduction

"One of the principles of authoritarian rule is to keep people in ignorance on developments in the world in general and especially on developments in their surroundings", a foreign correspondent wrote in Constantinople in 1782 in his article on the secrets of ruling in the Ottoman empire of the time. His definition of the first principle of despotic rule - as demonstrated by some modern examples - has lost nothing of its topicality after more than 200 years. Methods and objectives of communication have changed, but there is no doubt that operation of media in modern states still depends on politics (in whose domain of power they still are). Modern politics is aware of the power of media and it depends on "production of public opinion". That is why the monopolistic position in proclamation of certain opinions is exceptionally important, and the control of media is in the focus of attention of every policy, although this is contrary to the principles of free exchange of opinions.

If totalitarian systems have ever since the beginning of formation of mass media tried to control them directly and fully, democratic systems with their complex mechanism of legal and institutional control in which media are "free" and self-regulating, are a completely different system of communication. Media in the countries in transition of South-Eastern Europe have been travelling down this road in the past ten years with more or less success; after transformation at the time of war conflicts, they were often instruments of local aggressive policies. Even in the states which have quickly passed through the period of nationalistic conflicts, media were not spared the conflict of power between rival political forces within a state.

For the establishment of an open and democratic society in the process of transition of the society and media the question of transformation of state into public media is especially important on the one hand, and the question of access to information and protection of journalistic sources of information is equally important on the other hand. To what extent the former process is important we have seen recently - the events on Czech Television, demonstrations in Bulgaria because of the position of national radio station, the conflict between the parliaments and the institutions of civil society in Slovenia because of nomination of the director of public Radio-Television station, problems caused by election of the director of public television in Hungary, constant testing of strength of political forces inside entities in Bosnia & Herzegovina, triumphant conquest of "TV Bastille" in Belgrade and many other examples are just different episodes of the same story, the story in which politics in all the states is in different ways trying to take over the influence (primarily) in public media.

Even the war, as examples from the Gulf war and NATO intervention in FRY show, has become primarily the war of the media and a spectacle in which victory in the media sphere often determines the winner in the conflict. How can one oppose direct mediation of politics and abuse of the media in democratic societies? How can an efficient "pact between the people and public media" be created, which is according to the opinion of the agent for transformation of RTV of Bosnia & Herzegovina, John Shearer, the necessary condition for the autonomy of public media? In order to give an answer to this question, it is necessary to find out what the role is like of the central agency which appoints editors in the system of state and public media, what the financial autonomy of public media is like, whether conditions for obtaining television and radio channels are not discriminatory and what the conditions are like for entrance of private and foreign capital in the field of electronic media? The question which is not less important is whether the range of signals enables competition between privately owned and public (state) media, whether journalists in public media have a code which precisely determines the guidelines for the work of journalists and editors, how the right to correction and answers is regulated; and finally, it is not unimportant whether operation of other institutions - judiciary, investigative judges - ensures and invigorates freedom of expression?

The other side of the coin is the right of all members of a society to free access to all public information. Public information are all those which are not explicitly defined as secret. The key question is whether the legislature of individual states protects the right to access to information, within what time limit and what the sanctions are in case of unfounded refusal of information? It is also important to know for what category of information there are legal limitations to stating them to the public (military secret, state secret, personal data...) and what mechanisms of control exist for valid and consistent implementation of regulations. Special attention should be devoted to the question of freedom of criticising public figures who often use court protection from insult in order to defend themselves from justified criticism.

The question of protection of journalists' sources of information, which until a few years ago was not known, is equally important. Why journalists who are in different proceedings forced by the state authorities to betray their sources of information, cannot do journalist of CBS DANIEL Scorr best explains it. In 1976 he received and published a strictly confidential document of a commission of American Congress in which secret activities of CIA were described. Then a special Congress "Ethics Committee" interrogated more than 400 witnesses and spent 150 thousand dollars but failed to reveal who had given the document to the journalist. In the end, the Committee summoned the journalist himself. Scorr refused to reveal the source despite the possibility of ending up in jail for having "insulted the Congress".

"To protect one's source of information is something that is of utmost importance for journalists, because that is the only way to preserve the trust of the informer. To betray a single source of information would in the future scare and discourage many other possible sources of information of many other journalists. Journalists and media would be de for good. Ultimately, American citizens and their institutions would be deprived. Betrayal of my source would, above all, be betrayal of myself, my career, my life. It would be simple to declare that I don't wish to do it... It is the truth that I cannot do it..." That is how Daniel Scorr defended his principle in 1976. And his source.

In very few states in transition new legislature has been passed which insures inviolability of sources and protection of journalists. In majority of the countries in transition there is practically no such dilemma; to make things even worse, national legislature in such states is incomplete and contradictory. Such a discrepancy between theory and practice is the result of the fact that journalists are nowadays rarely exposed to pressure of the authorities, to interrogation, confiscated notes, tape recordings and similar actions of state institutions. More detailed explanations of the media situation in individual states and answers to some of the mentioned dilemmas were given during and after AIM Seminar on the topic "Media in Transition" held in Ljubljana; these texts that follow in this dossier are the result.

Igor Mekina