New Attacks on the Media

Paper for the Obedient, Court for the Others

AIM Belgrade, 6 February, 1998

The media situation in Serbia is becoming tense again: the old slightly dilapidated trenches of the internal "media war" are being cleaned up, and new ones are being dug. The division of the press into "patriotic" and the "mercenary-treacherous" - known also to some of the other former Yugoslav republics - still works undisturbed, although the war for post-Yugoslav heritage is over, quite crushingly for the Serbs, in fact. The difference in relation to the time of war is in the topics which are used to prove a lack or a surplus of "patriotism", but not in the structure of this methodological and ethical extremely dubious division. That is how it is possible for the exchange rate of the national currency - dinar - to suddenly tumble down headlong and cause unseen panic and all kinds of disturbances on the market, because the people still remember only too well the apocalyptic 1993 mega-inflation, without neither the federal nor the republican government being to blame for it, nor anybody else from the administration and the "structures", but

• journalists!

Prime minister of Serbian government, Mirko Marjanovic, resolutely accused "independent media" (quotation marks are his own) that they had caused disturbance among the citizens with their sensationalistic articles and threatened to pull down the dinar which Marjanovic's government is defending with so much self-sacrifice. The mentioned "sensationalism" consisted of mere statement about the drastic fall of the dinar on the black foreign currency market - the only one which is accessible to the ordinary people - and announcements of devaluation of the domestic currency, since from the aspect of economic science it is normal that a currency the official value of which is drastically overestimated in relation to the market value must devaluate sooner or later. The sooner, the better. Accusations of the journalists were not limited only to angry words of the insulted power-wielders who think that the press does not appreciate enough their patriotic efforts: the editior and owner of Dnevni telegraf Slavko Curuvija was taken for an one-hour interrogation by the investigative judge because of "disturbing" writing of his journal. Other Belgrade editors will probably experience the same.

That is how a new "demarcation line" between the obedient and the others was drawn: anybody who dares notice and register the present will have to face political, economic and legal consequences. Those who will be ready to continue to prolong life of the illusion of an almost idyllic life may count on all kinds of allowances and benefits primarily economic ones.

And there should be no doubt that economic, that is, the question of fundamental survival will be the central issue for the entire Belgrade and Serbian press in the forthcoming period. This is perfectly nnormal, since the characteristic of free market is that nobody is protected in advance, and that everybody must prove their worth in competition with others. The problem is, of course, that a typical post-communist quasi-market confusion rules Serbia: the regime is finding thousand ways to make survival easy for the media loyal to it, and millions of ways to make life difficult and even impossible to the others.

It is well-known what problems are encountered by privately-owned and independent electronic media for which it is very difficult to get channels and permits; now it is also the press, especially daily that is being attacked. The operation of silent stifling of disobedient newspapers is carried out in a roundabout way, with "subtlety", so that nobody realizes what is going on: by artificial production of shortage of newsprint. The only factory of newsprint in Serbia, Matroz from Sremska Mitrovica, is not working for months. The well-informed say that this enterprise which is state-owned, was destroyed by unskilled interventions of the state which did not seem to care to have enough paper produced for everyone - they knew that for their "pets" there will always be enough paper. And the others might as well chip stone if they wish to state something. That is how a large majority of newspapers are forced to purchase their newsprint abroad, which is not at all easy: the regime has planted a whole series of legal, financial, customs and who knows what barriers between foreign newsprint manufacturers and domestic journals, so that paper is arriving in small quantities, and there are all kinds of peculiar delays in delivery. That is why, in the past few weeks, many dailies in Belgrade - especially those printed in the state printing works Borba - resembled Bulgarian newspapers from the early fifties: eight poorly editted pages of yellowish paper and that was it. Newspapers which are the favourites of the authorities were regularly published all that time, thicker than ever.

It is interesting that Vecernje novosti - until recently the reliable spokesman of the regime - was forced to share all the problems with Blic, Dnevni telegraf or Danas, and found itself in a prominent place of the prime minister Marjanovic's "black list". Novosti started to stray during the anti-regime demonstrations last winter when - after the initial unconditioned siding with the authorities and concealing even of the fundamental information - it suddenly shifted and started quite professionally and unbiasly to follow developments. A similar thing happened in certain other later circumstances. Therefore, in one of her renowned diaries, Dr Mirjana Markovic attacked - without mentioning his name - the head of Novosti as an undecisive and sold soul. That is why the new Montenegrin president Milo Djukanovic praised this daily, which is undoubtedly a significant signal for the domestic media watch-dogs... The case of this journal is an illustration of the situation in the media, but also the global political and spiritual situation in Serbia nowadays: if we used terms and measures customary to the western world, there is no doubt that Novosti could still be precisely described as a "daily inclined towards the ruling party". Nevertheless, even a tiny deviation from the sacred line is sufficient to cause fury from the very top of the regime. The destiny of such, essentially loyal newspaper speaks best about the future of a regime and its awareness of the role of the media in the society.

It can be expected that this will be a "hot" year in Serbian journalism. The number of journals is growing at the diminishing and impoverishing market in the country in which - like elsewhere in the Balkans - reading is not exactly a top priority for an "ordinary man". The market has its laws, cruel but essentially just. The regime, however, sticks to its own laws - cruel, but unjust. And there is no doubt that it will do its best to silence all those who are in its way because they are revealing that the "emperor is naked" and that it will continue to make an effort to supply producers of dictated illusions in the media with everything they need. And if the dinar finally goes downhill - we all know who will be arrested.

Teofil Pancic

(AIM) nnnnn