PROFESSION IN THE SERVICE OF PROPAGANDA

State Media in RS

AIM Banja Luka, 6 August, 1997

In the current political crisis, professionalism of state media in Republica Srpska experienced the greatest degradation. Critics, mostly coming from the ranks of the opposition parties, were joined by the President of the Republic, who informed the public that she had been forbidden access to television and who sharply criticized the editorial policy of the state media by having said that they were instruments of policy of a single party (Serb Democratic Party

• SDS) and that they were engaged in yet unseen propaganda. President Plavsic warned of the possibility of introduction of a protectorate of the television, having in mind the conclusion reached in Sintra which authorized the high representative of the international community to suspend operation of a media which was engaged in obstruction of the Dayton accords. The same television afterwards attacked the President and accused her of inviting "foreign power-wielders" to introduce a protectorate of the "Serb television". Sharp criticism of the state media came recently from the office of the high representative Carlos Westendorp, too. In an analysis of the work of state media, the Serb Radio-Television is said to be "creating a paranoid atmosphere by quoting the officials of Republica Srpska, but also by means of commentaries".

Council for Editors

The professional collapse of the media is linked by connoisseurs of political circumstances to the assessment of the ruling team in Pale that the popularity of the SDS was declining and that this was the reason why political propaganda had to be intensified. Verified obedient journalists from state media were called to help again, and in order to make the dictate especially serious, the National Assembly of RS founded a council for program orientation and editorial policy of the state media. Its foundation and the first session in the end of June was marked by state media as "continuation of the democratization process". On 25 June, under this title, on the third page of the daily Glas srpski, a text about "goals and tasks" of the council was published, along with the news that the first session attended by the leading men from the media, representatives of the government and the army of RS, had been devoted to the editorial policy and program orientation of the media in the election campaign. As stated in the text, "it was proposed at the session that Serb Radio Television (SRT) whose local radio stations are all around RS, coordinate covering the elections".

That is how it happened that in the benches of the National Assembly of RS, instead of an advisory body of deputies, a regular new "agitprop" was created, whose role is not even concealed from the public. Although it is an assembly agency, it is chaired by the vice prime minister Velibor Ostojic, former language editor of Sarajevo Television, minister of information in the government of Bosnia & Herzegovina and high state official of Republica Srpska ever since its foundation.

Among the journalists, Velibor Ostojic is considered to be the first man of the information system of RS and the head of propaganda of the ruling SDS. Ministers of information are said to be appointed with his blessing and they serve as mere executors of orders of the executive agencies of the SDS. All the posts bearing responsibility in state media of republican significance are held by Ostojic's friends from Sarajevo and ideological like-minded persons who are without any questions carrying out the editorial policy of their mentor. In Banja Luka, city which before the war had well-developed media and professional journalists, Ostojic replaced men at prominent posts in all the state media and appointed journalists who had fled from Sarajevo instead. The editor of Banja Luka Glas srpski, the only state daily, is Gordan Matrak, former editor of Oslobodjenje. Director general of the newspaper publishing enterprise is Nenad Novakovic, also pre-war journalist of Sarajevo Oslobodjenje. The editor of Serb Radio seated in Banja Luka is Milivoj Tutnjevic, also cadre from Sarajevo. It cannot be denied that these men have knowledge of the skills of journalism, but the professional and the ordinary public in Banja Luka is strongly disapproving because its excellent and verified professionals are ignored.

Media War between Banja Luka and Pale

The colonial status of Banja Luka was confirmed by suspension of the Banja Luka studio of SRT when the political crisis broke out in the relations between President of the Republic Biljana Plavsic and state and political leaders in Pale. Refusing to accept that their work be censored by theeditors in Pale, members of the editorial team from the Banja Luka Studio informed the editor-in-chief of SRT Drago Vukovic on 21 July that under the existing circumstances it was impossible for them to edit the daily news program. The editor-in-chief then refused their services, and just in case, by a decision of the management in Pale, the tv relay on mount Kozara near Banja Luka was placed in keeping with the police.

The editor of the Banja Luka Studio, Vlado Slijepcevic submitted his resignation after that and went on sick leave, and Mirko Cabrilo, former cameraman of Sarajevo television, who had won confidence of the SDS by shooting their first pre-election rallies, was sent from Pale to take his place.

Introduction of order from Pale met with resistance of the employees in the Banja Luka studio. The arrival of the new editor from Pale just added oil on the fire, so that the long lasting discontent by policy dictated from Pale could result in unexpected shifts.

Propagandist Professionalism

Not much effort is necessary to explain to what extent propaganda and political instrumentalization participate in the professionalism of state media. In a series of malicious commentaries about the work of the President of the Republic Biljana Plavsic, which were often on the verge of the lowest provincial lack of good taste, the spectators will remember the alleged letter of a few families of soldiers killed in combat from Kninska street in Pale read in the program called Novosti (News) which with plenty of patriotic wrath condemned the President, reminding the spectators that it was easy for her to wage war since she herself was a barren woman and could never feel what pain caused by a killed son or husband meant. Or, referring to an "unnamed source", this same television informs the public that President Biljana Plavsic is also on the secret list of the Hague tribunal, along with the leaders of the opposition parties who are supporting her and who, according to the same "source", were promised that they would be omitted from the list if "they buy out their lives by sacrificing lives of other Serbs". According to their style, their intonation and messages it is not difficult to conclude that these propagandist pamphlets were written by the same hand.

The daily Glas srpski is not at all less "professional". From the first day of the crisis it was also involved in the propagandist hue and cry against the President. Editorials and commentaries previously read in the television daily news program by the censors from Pale were regularly published on its front pages. The news about the death of Sima Drljaca during the arrest by international military forces in Prijedor, was published across the front page with the title: "Occupiers Kill Sima Drljaca". Members of the international forces were called fascists, criminals, occupiers, savages...

All this did not bother the Council for media to declare in public that the state media were objective and highly professional. In perverted patriotism and party servility, all feeling for professional honour and dignity has been lost. Professional ethics has moved from the journalistic code into the political program and directives of the ruling party printed for the sixth time a few days ago. In them, the media were given a prominent place and a role which the obedient in state media will play perfectly. It should be expected that such professional degradation of the state media will reaffirm the alternative ones and in this way open the space for quicker democratization of the society.

Branko Peric