SWITCHMEN OF INFORMATION
Media and Protests of Citizens
AIM Belgrade, 26 November, 1996
In the probably best film ever made which refers to the journalist profession "Citizen Caine", to a question "What will the public think?", the main hero without hesitation concludes: "The public will think what I tell them"!
Ten days long demonstrations of the citizens of Belgrade and all the larger cities around Serbia (Nis, Kragujevac, Kraljevo, Uzice...) which are initiated by nullification of results in local elections in this "largest Yugoslav republic" (in Montenegro everything has passed in good order) is followed by everyday "projection" of re-make of this film or at least incessant paraphrase of the non-democratic conclusion of the main hero... Leaders of the key state-controlled media remain deaf and dumb about the latest, greatest mass "happening of the people" in Serbia since 9 March 1991.
In the past several days, truly, mass gatherings of citizens were present in programs of the Radio-Television Serbia and in the columns of Politika and Vecernje novosti, but those held in Zagreb, od course, which was the central piece of news in many Belgrade media, and stingy information about demonstration in their own back yard, if presented at all, were served in the manner in which local switchmen of information have been successfully applying for years already: short, mostly incorrect information about gatherings were just the immediate cause for some of the fiercest commentaries and attacks against Chetniks of the Serb opposition! As this gallant period of democratization of media in the FRY still persists, state-copntrolled television and radio, but also newspapers close to the administration have become "free" to such an extent that they simply choose not to publish certain things at all: For instance, on Monday, 25 November, when more than 100 thousand people went out into the streets of Belgrade, and more than 15 thousand students continued their protest at their faculties, RTS and Vecernje novosti have not published a word about it, and Politika, for the first time abstaining from the practice to report about demonstrations solely through reports of state news-agency Tanjug (?), informed its readers that "supporters of the coalition 'Together' demolished the building of Politika"! And until recently, the rule was that anything that was not published in Politika or Novosti, or broadcast on RTS, has not happened at all!
In the past few years, it even happened that citizens sought help from their doctors (they see one thing, and then read and watch something completely different), but, obviously, the raised criteria of the readers made many renounce the phony truth and turn to those employees of the seventh force who are in a somewhat happier marriage with the codex of the profession.
When some day, some people try to settle accounts and make a balance sheet of this "velvet revolution", the first item in the "black" will certainly be Radio B 92, the only independent electronic media in the Serbian capital. Not because this radio station has not previously operated pursuant the principles of the profession, on the contrary, but primarily due to the fact that citizens of Belgrade have finally located on their radio sets the channel (quite by the way, the permit for using this channel is a temporary one) which is truthfully and quickly informing them about all the significant developments in the city. Unfortunately, the range of their transmitter is very small, it often happens that it cannot be heard even in some parts of the city, but mostly thanks to a small and very young team of journalists gathered around this radio station (their slogan is: "24 hours above Belgrade") equipped with small, portable radio transmitters (type of "talky-walkies"), who are in the streets for days, made it possible to tear off the fig leaf off the truth about happenings in Serbia! The revealed truth, live reports from all the cities, information without comments raised Radio B 92 on the pedestal of Serbian independent journalism.
As for who knows how many times before, Nasa borba proved once again its independent editorial policy, and like five years ago when Belgrade also moved out into the streets published a special issues. But, its average circulation of 50 thousand printed copies and the same number of copies of Dnevni Telegraf, journal which has not yet lit the first candle on its birthday cake, due to the customary problem with distribution of journals which do not support the authorities in Serbia, can hardly satisfy the hunger of interested consumers of information around Serbia. The new daily in Serbia Blic to a certain extent took care of that. In just two months of its existence, from the September circulation which has not exceeded 50 thousand copies, after the latest developments around Serbia, reached for the local circumstances fantastic figure of over 200 thousand copies in the past few days! If one would add circulations of weeklies such as Vreme, NIN and Nedeljni telegraf, with the total circulation which exceeds the figure of 100 thousand, it seems that the citizens of Serbia cannot complain that they have not been informed about the latest developments. But the fact that those who read Nasa Borba mostly read also either Vreme or NIN, which means that this is mostly the same public, and on the other hand, the obvious economic chaos in which a large portion of the people have no money even for bread, least of all for newspapers, leads to the conclusion that the major part of Serbia is "sentenced" to be informed by RTS!
From the very first day of the protest in Serbia, Politika, "in peace and with dignity", manifested its precious Christian sinlessness by throwing itself into the arms of Tanjug which day after day served to the public its own concept of the events, solely in Belgrade, and it could all be brought down to duplicated short news off the "ticker" in which the figure of participants in the rally was underestimated by the descriptive evaluation of "not a big number"! Except for a rather short unsigned commentary in which it is stated that there will not be any more "racketeering of Politika" and even six photographs (for the first time) which illustrate the "attack" of marchers with eggs on the building of Politika (the illuminated sign on the building now reads "P....IKA"), there were no other attempts to do anything but carry Tanjug reports!
The first two day of the protests, Vecernje novosti devoted their first pages to developments in Zair, Belorussia and Zagreb... None of the officials of the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and Yugoslav United Left (JUL) has officially issued a statement, and the internal fear of the editors had reached the critical level when Ivica Dacic, spokesman of the SPS and Branislav Ivkovic, the first man of Belgrade organization of the party in power, came out in the open and made a few lectures on democracy. This journal of JUL orientation quickly joined the "winning forces"! Adopting the slogan "Ora et collabora" (it is time for cooperation) and with the principle "Ora et labora" (it is time for work), on its pages reserved for commentaries, Vecernje novosti quickly pushed forward the "unprovoked" Predrag Vitas, who is known for his extremely blunt and vehement commentaries, and who attacked the participants of the protest gatherings and the leaders of the opposition with great passion. In view of the fact that Predrag Vitas was a member of the team in RTS which provoked demonstrations in 1991, after which he went into oblivion, the advertising motto of this newspaper: "This can be done by nobody but Novosti" really suits this "left firm" very well!
Like many times before, in the attempt to hide the ugly scars on the face of Serbian reality with heavy make-up, RTS and Tanjug set an example! Probably in the intention not to disturb the public, leading personalities in RTS in their daily informative programs during the first days of the protest in Serbia pubblished information about a "handful of deceived people who wish to come to power by insults and terrorism". But, when they realized that the events were far beyond joke, they used a clumsy and unfortunate statement of Danica Draskovic, member of the Executive Board of the Serb Revival Movement (SPO), who called the people to "resistance with clubs", but also remembered to mention "bombs", in just two days, both on the screen, and on the radio, the appearance of Mrs. Draskovic was broadcast neither more nor less than 43 times. When that did not help, they resorted to forgeries and photomontage! For instance, addressing the journalists, leader of SPO, Vuk Draskovic, declared that "the President of Serbia was obviously sticking to the words of his wife, President of JUL, who said: 'We, communists, have come to power in blood and that is the only way how we can leave'". Only the latter part of this statement was broadcast on state-controlled television, so that it appeared as if these were Mr Draskovic's words! The information, however, that tens thousand demonstrants had covered the building of the RTS with eggs was not published, probably, due to a lack of time, because they kept reading the list of 138 municipalities in which the Left coalition had "won"!
As concerning the other TV stations in Belgrade, former NTV Studio B, which was snatched away from the citizens of Belgrade by city authorities, was silenced down almost to non-existence: TV Politika has even concerning its own replaced leadership carried only Tanjug's report; BK Telekom, the director of which is Aleksandar Tijanic, who is also minister of information in the Government of Serbia, is skilfully weighing out information, and after a single "good take" which showed clearly that there were many more than a "not a large number of people", cameramen and directors of BK television were sternly rebuked!
And as concerning Tanjug, as an illustration of their "independent" approach to the problem of transforming the negative effects into positive facts (for the authorities, of course), the example of forging even the reports of the Russian agency ITAR TASS speaks the best, since even some of its parts were skilfully cut out and then carried by RTS in all the central information media. The demand of Tamara Zamyatsin, correspondent of ITAR TASS from Belgrade, that her report be published in extenso, was refused by Zoran Jevdjovic, director of Tanjug and friend of the President of Serbia, because "window-dressing was not in his domain"!
If the latest attempt is added of the authorities to somehow neutralize the media which do not support it (special edition of Telegraf was printed in another printing works, because those of the state-controlled Borba did not want to print it; the same printing works threatened BLIC that in the future it would not print it in a circulation over 80 thousand" because there are no technical conditions fot it"; NIN and Vreme for the first time in history are forced to hand in their manuscripts for printing three days in advance...), it is difficult to avoid the impression that these developments within and around media are perfectly "tuned in" with those dating back five years ago when democracy attempted "to knock at the doors of Serbia"!
It is not difficult to draw lessons, but regardless of the fact that this is not a defeat of media alone (but it certainly is their defeat, too), more fiercely than in the past six years, many editorial boards, primarily those in Belgrade, made it clear to the authorities that the time of servants paid to nod their heads in approval to every word coming from the boss, has almost come to its end!
For the beginning - this is more than enough!
(AIM) Slavisa Lekic