WHOSE IS NASA BORBA

Conflict between journalists and private ownership

AIM, Belgrade, October 15, 1995

While numerous sociologists, economists, politicologists, philosophers, and historians were last week at a Belgrade scientific gathering discussing whether former socialist societies were moving towards liberal capitalism, post-industrial societies, "nomenclature" capitalism, democratic socialism, or Latin-American-type dictatorship and "casino" capitalism, a rather small Belgrade strike showed the whole complexity of life in transition and proved how difficult it was to find an answer to this question, especially in the Serb context. Namely, between October 3 and 13, journalists of Nasa Borba, the only independent daily in the Serbian-speaking region were on strike. And they were on strike not for being against the state which proved to be the main enemy of independent media in the past pluralistic years, but against their owner - that is, against private ownership which in the existing models of transition figures as a natural ally of the freedom of the press and pluralism of ideas and values.

Is the rule formulated in highly developed capitalist societies that "freedom of the press exists only for those who possess it (the press)" valid in the demolished Serb society where on the one hand official fear of "total privatization" is present, and on the other hope in the future based on "an unknown equation with two known quantities" - the market and democracy? Or do the events in Nasa Borba reaffirm the rule of those who support democratic and responsible communication, which is also a product of developed capitalism, that "information is too important a matter to leave decion-making about it solely to those who are engaged in it"? Or is the first conflict of private ownership and journalists on the still new ground of ownership pluralism just a "relic of self-management consiousness" which cannot accept the fact that someone with a name and surname collects the profit made by someone else?

Meeting of a private owner and an editorial staff

The cause of the strike in the only independent daily in Serbia was the choice of a new editor-in-chief of the journal, i.e. the attempt of Dusan Mijic, the owner of Novi Sad enterprise called "Fininvest" which publishes Nasa Borba, to suspend the right of the editorial staff to paticipate in his choice. The dispute between the staff and Mijic, however, has much deeper roots than personnel combinations.

Nasa Borba was founded after last-year's terrible attack of the state against autonomous editorial policy of the then also only independent daily in Serbia - Borba: after several months of a quasi-legal proceedings, the state annulled transformation of the social enterprise Borba into a share-holding enterprise - after three years of operation of Borba DD. During that time, the journal acquired a reputation for being a journal of civic orientation which promotes standards of objective journalism as opposed to "patriotic" journalism advocated by journalists in state-controlled media and the leadership of the Journalists' Association. As the state took over the entire ownership of the enterprise, its name inclusive, and as it continued to be printed, but with a complete different editorial conception, members of the editorial staff could do nothing but launch a new journal and name it Nasa Borba ("our Borba" as opposed to "their", state Borba).

The founder of Nasa Borba was a Novi Sad enterprise called "Fininvest" owned by Dusan Mijic who had also been the biggest share-holder in Borba DD.

• We were not gathered by just any private entrepreneur, Zdravko Huber says, who is a member of the Editorial Collegiate Body of Nasa Borba and the President of the Independent Trade Union of the journal which organized the strike. - As a team, we had a continuity of operation since the times of social and mixed ownership. We had a complete production program, a highly reputable product, a product "with a brand".

A specific arrangement was created between the editorial staff and the private entrepreneur whose major business was trade with agricultural products. Mijic did not agree to division of ownership rights, but allowed the staff to elect 3 out of the total of 9 members of the Management Board. Their participation in management of the enterprise was symbolic, but the Statute precisely prescribed the inviolable right of the editorial staff in the choice of the editor-in-chief - practically the right of veto. (At least the copy of the Statute that was given the editorial staff - later it turned out that the owner had registered a somewhat changed text of the Statute in the Economic Court, in this very part, but that is another story).

On that occasion, another document was formulated, called Letter of Intent in which Mijic took upon himself to initiate transformation of the enterprise into a share-holding company in a reasonable time limit when the enterprise consolidates itself, which would enable involvement of interested factors from abroad, but also purchase of shares by the workers of Nasa Borba at reduced prices as a privilege.

Unfortunate moving

Nasa Borba succeeded in restoring its circulation, even at a price which was three times higer than that of other journals. But, consolidation of the newspaper in the market did not bring a better status to its journalists. Namely, when they were evicted from the premises of the enterprise Borba DD by the state, and while waiting to move to new premises promised by the owner, journalists of Nasa Borba were subtenants in the premises of the Independent Trade Union and the Media Centre. Newspapers were made every day in impossible conditions, in hardly 150 square meters, using borrowed equipment, telephones and with highly irregular salaries. These, "temporary conditions" lasted for eight months!

When finally, in the beginning of September, the journalists moved into long wished for premises, some of them cried. Because of disappointment.

• The dimensions of the space barely fulfill the minimum requirements for work. We are short of tables and chairs. There were three telephones for 120 people, now there are 5, and one fax. We have no photo-lab either. We did not have a single typewriter, but we were promised computers which still haven't arrived. We are writing on typewriters we bring from home - Zdravko Huber explains.

Disappointment of the journalists was complete. Having lived provisionally, it seemed that they had had no time to notice what was wrong with their journal. And when finally they saw where they stood - they realized that everything was wrong. Salaries are irregular, although not small - 640 dinars on the average. Fees have not been paid for months. Due to irregular payments, many correspondents from abroad have given notice (from Beijing, Germany...). Services of foreign news agencies also had to be called off. Although this journal is the most popular Serb newspaper among the Kosovo Albanians, it has no correspondent from Prishtina. Although it aspires to be read in the former Yugoslav space, it has no correspondent in Zagreb either. There are only two permanently employed correspondents - from Washington and Brussels. The enterprise has no vehicles, the journalists simply do not travel anywhere.

Serious doubts concerning the intentions of the owner of the journal have emerged. Is he cnoncerned about Nasa Borba at all, or is he giving priority to some of his other business transactions on account of the reputation of the journal? The journalists started concluding that in the past 9 months they have seen no indication of the owner's intention to even start resolving the numerous problems. They kept wondering what he had invested in the project Nasa Borba except the registration of the enterprise for journalistic activity.

In mid September, the editorial staff, trade union and Editorial Collegiate Body wrote a letter to the owner of the journal Dusan Mijic expressing their dissatisfaction with the conditions of work in new premises. The response which arrived from the owner was the dismissal of the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Gordana Logar, and the attempt to appoint Branislav Milosevic, Deputy Director of Nasa Borba and a member of the Management Board completely loyal to Mijic in her place. The conflict was inevitable. By the way, it was not the dismissal of the Editor-in-Chief that caused dissatisfaction of the staff, because she herself had announced her resignation several times before, but rather the arrogant attitude of the owner to disregard in appointing the new Editor-in-Chief the provision of the Statute which prescribes voting of the editorial staff on it, as well as his ignoring of a much more significant problem at that moment - conditions of work.

Who won?

Having decided to strike, because of "the obligation to fight for preservation of its autonomy and independent editorial position of the journal, acquired after a hard struggle", as the striking committee declared, the staff formulated three demands: observation of the statutory procedure for appointment of the editor-in-chief in which the editorial staff has a decisive role; improvement of conditions of work; cessation of the use of the name Nasa Borba until transformation of the enterprise as promised by the owner in the Letter of Intent is completed.

During negotiations with the owner, the conflict intensified and revealed issues which the journalists just suspected. At their request, Secretary General of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) from Brussels, Aiden White, visited the strikers and expressed full support to the demands of the journalists. He informed the journalists of Nasa Borba that at the time of the last year's attack of the state against this independent journal, his organization organized a large campaign in favour of Borba and won support of a large number of trade unions. This support took place because of the journalists of Nasa Borba and what they stood for, not because of its Management Board, i.e. Mijic, White said.

According to the report of Beta news agency, White told the journalists that a "considerable sum of money" was allocated to Nasa Borba. He insisted that the journalists of Nasa Borba be informed about all external financial resources of the journal, stressing that the form of future ownership relations in the journal should clearly be defined. At the same time, White reminded that none of the models would be successful if not founded on mutual confidence of the journalists and management structures.

And there is no mutual confidence between the editorial staff of Nasa Borba and the publisher of the journal, private entrepreneur Dusan Mijic any more. The result of the vote for his candidate for the editor-in-chief, Branislav Milosevic, at the referendum of the editorial was a catastrophe: 75 journalists were against and only seven in favour of him.

According to certain assessments, Milosevic was defeated because he is such a close associate of the owner. Rade Radovanovic, editor of the culture column of Nasa Borba, stresses that he symbolizes more than that for the editorial staff - an anti-Stalinist Stalinist, the best pupil of the old school which used and cast people away, who certainly participated in dubious monetary transactions of Dusan Mijic.

The strike in Nasa Borba ended with the appointment of Mirko Klarin, one of the two only foreign correspondents of the journal, to the post of the acting editor-in-chief. The journalists were divided concerning this appointment, 44 of them were against it, and 37 in favour of Klarin ("We don't know him, he hasn't been in Belgrade for a long time, and he doesn't know us either..."), so according to the agreement of the conflicting parties, Klarin will remain at the post of the editor-in-chief only for next two months. After the choice of the acting editor-in-chief, publishing of Nasa Borba was resumed. In the first volume after ten days, the new Editor-in-Chief did not even see it fit to inform the readers why his journal had not been published for such a long time.

The third beginning?

• We succeeded in incorporating the former statutory provisions into a separate protocol which states precisely that the editor-in-chief is elected with the agreement of the editorial staff and we can consider this as our principled victory, Zdravko Huber, President of the Independent Trade Union, says. - Our strike was an authentic protest of the journalists against the arrogant private ownership which refuses to accept the fact that publication of journals is a business, but also something that affects human rights. If that private ownership is not cultivated, enriched by assertion of human rights and creative dimensions of this job, it will not create more space for the free word than the previous system when the media were patronized by political centres of power. If those who are interested in investing into the sphere of public information understand and accept this, our strike has had some sense, Huber emphasizes.

Branislav Milosevic, the defeated candidate for the new editor-in-chief of Nasa Borba, believes that the journalists had no right to interrupt publication of the journal. - Journalists only have the right to choose the journal - do they wish to work in a privatrely-owned or a state journal, the former President of the Association of Independent Media of Serbia claims in his letter in the weekly Vreme. Interruption of publishing of a journal is "always the matter of the publisher, either the state ot the private owner", Milosevic stresses.

According to his opinion, "when all vanities and all spites that have caused forced rest of the public from Nasa Borba are pushed aside, the syndrom of self-managing socialistic egalitarianism is revealed in a very preserved state at the very top of the editorial staff of the journal, which quite spontaneously and convinced of its high morality and authencity, opposes all notions of ownership transformation. Is it possible that what had been ours and noone's at the same time, can now belong to a single man", Milosevic writes.

Opinions have remained divided. Some are convinced that people around the project of Nasa Borba are gathered by the very awareness of the need to make journalism professional and the need for full freedom of the public word which will not be limited by interests of entrepreneurs, while the others point out that strikes of this sort are led by idlers and envious persons. But, the editorial staff preserved its right to authorship of the project of Nasa Borba. If its relations with Mijic should not be resolved satisfactorily, based on a decision of two thirds of the editorial staff, it has the right to separate from Mijic and continue the project on its own, under the same name. Will independent Borba be forced to start from scratch for the third time?

Jovanka Matic