Journalists in Politics

The Fourth Estate Treated Stepmotherly

AIM Banja Luka, 23 March, 1998

The politicians are completely innocent when media are concerned: they respect (and pay) the journalists only as much as they fear them

The fact that among the politicians in Republica Srpska (RS) journalists can be counted on the fingers of one hand would be commented on by malicious persons as a considerable misfortune for journalism, but a comparatively big benefit for Serb politics. To be truthful, the well-meaning are not right either who would draw a conclusion about a distance of Serb journalists from seductive charms of politics. There has never been anythibng of the sort. The story about journalists in politics is a story about three persons: Dragan Bozanic, deputy of the head of diplomacy in the Council of Ministers of B&H, Rajko Vasic, the minister of information in the government of RS, and Dejan Lukic who is preparing for the promised post of the ambassador of B&H in Cairo. And that is about all.

BOZANIC, VASIC, LUKIC: Not even the story about these three getting involved in politics reveals much. A couple of years ago Bozanic entered the government of Rajko Kasagic in which he was the minister of information, although there had been at least three persons more potent in politics in the branch. Bozanic's transfer to diplomacy is not at all typical for Pale: although loyal enough, he was too polite and well-mannered, at receptions he did not hold the fork too low, he spoke foreign languages, so that it is quite a miracle that he should rank first in the selection of Krajisnik's diplomats. Vasic's engagement does not reveal much either: Milorad Dodik took over the model of Mladen Ivanic according to which the post of the minister of information should be given to a journalist. And since majority of the few journalists in RS who had never compared Biljana Plavsic with Mussolini last summer was not in the mood to stop moonlighting for the sake of a post which neither promised much power nor much honour - Vasic was selected. Three things recommended Dejan Lukic for the post of the ambassador in Cairo: first, he used to be a Sarajevan. Second, he was one of the rare Tanjug's correspondents from abroad who in 1994 between Milosevic and Karadzic chose the latter. And third, for a couple of years already Lukic has been the only channel which intervened between Karadzic's thoughts and newsprint. Briefly, all the three mentioned political careers of journalists are apart, but they tell nothing about the connection of Serb journalism and politics. None of them has like Milorad Vucelic in Serbia, offered his journalist's phrase to politics for an indefinite time, nor, like Adam Mihnyik in Poland, crowned his writing with a political job nor given additional meaning to his engagement in politics by writing for a newspaper.

JOURNALIST IN POLITICS - TAUTOLOGY: Why are there at political posts in RS more physicians, lawyers, university professors and entrepreneurs than journalists? Simply: contrary to all these professions, to be a journalist in RS (and its surroundings) is in itself a political engagement. This means that transfer of a journalist to a political post is pure tautology, which translated means the following: you have taken somebody's job and yet you have not changed your trade. Does anybody remember a member of the central committee (of the communist party) in pre-war Bosnia who has ever spoiled a journalist's plans. No, the journalists themselves did it. Can anybody swear that during and after the war Miomcilo Krajisnik was heard explaining the journalists what they may and what they may not write. No, the journalists themselves did it. Does anybody dare bet that articles in the editorial offices will be censored by Milorad Dodik. Of course not, but not because Dodik is a born democrat, but because the journalists are again doing it themselves. The Berlin wall was torn down, thousands of people were killed in Bosnia, the regime in Pale fell with the big bang last autumn, and yet the journalists still remained social-political workers, a sort of politicians who do not give statements, but write them. And they would not move an inch. (Perhaps it should be tried with the Chinese Wall).

The author of this text knows an editorial team - of a state media, should it be said - which, when Milorad Dodik in some newspaper attacks Momcilo Krajisnik, carries the article in such a way that a man gets the impression that Dodik cannot talk about anything else but about loans he has not been granted yet. When the opposite happens, it is the same: the interpretation is such that it seems that Krajisnik bears a grudge against the international community, but especially the man born in Laktasi. The same editorial team guided by the criterion that a good journalist is a good Serb plus thirty letters of the alphabet, produced in the past few days a new, incredible neologism: Ibrahim Rugova, leader of Serbian Shqipetars. To a normal man it may seem that Shqipetars have appeared somewhere with the Serb military caps on, and to an abnormal one (the one who follows closely everything that is happening to us) things may be slightly clearer: Kosovo is, as Sloba says, a problem of Serbia, so the Shqipetars are Serbian. It is a completely different issue that the one to whom this ingenious phrase has occurred does not wish to hear that Sloba has almost agreed that there are "Yugoslav Shqipetars", and all things considered, we will not have to wait long for the time when Shqiptarian Shqipetars will appear.

WHY ARE THE POLITICIANS INNOCENT: Those who think that the journalists could not have invented such nonsense on their own, should immediately drive this idea out of their heads. The truth is that they have invented it, the politicians are quite innocent. But this means another thing, too. The new authorities in RS which like to call themselves democratic and say that they will not do anything to state journalists, actually behave like they say. They are not doing anything to them but they are not paying them either, so that the poor journalists would not feel as mercenaries. (In two months of the new authorities, media financed from the budget received just one salary, which was reduced). The journalists are, on the other hand, expecting money and instructions. In absence of instructions (and politicians), they are simulating the whole process, and even inventing some things on their own, like the one about Serbian Shqipetars.

The problem is, of course, in the fact that the phrase Serb journalism (or Croat, or Bosniac, just the same) is understtod by the journalists as a political fact, and not as a territorial or linguistic category, which at this moment it is. Of course, there are certain ideal categories, such as the one that Serb journalism exists like a school, but for a long time to come there will be nothing of the kind, if it does not mean bringing people to their senses from the screens of Radio-Television Serbia or off Tanjug's telefax. In other words, even when completely left alone by the politicians, the journalists are slowly realising that they do not wish to be left alone, because they want to be engaged in politics, to appear as if they are in favour of this or that, most frequently meagerly or not at all paid for it. That is why journalists are not invited to take part in politics, because there is no need for them to be. They are there uninvited, they ask for nothing but to be left where they already are. That is why the story about journalists in politics is not a story about politics, but about journalists.

KRAJISNIK'S LESSON: The whole story has some sense only in the context of the change of authorities in RS. There is not a single journalist in RS who has had a single day of working experience in circumstances of division of power. The coalition authorities are an ideal (and perhaps the last) chance for those who call themselves the fourth estate to stop feeling that they are treated stepmotherly. This is the last chance they have to choose to listen, from among the bunch of voices that surround them from the direction of the authorities which they are impatiently pricking their ears to hear, and finally obey their own. But, nothing comes of it, the journalists are still writing their articles for the politicians, and not for the public. And the politicians, like people of good taste, do not read them, and the public always finds a better way to spend its money. In all that, the international community also appeared whose praise means something like the decoration of Njegos they were awarded by Radovan Karadzic a couple of years ago. The criteria of the international community are also not journalistic but political, the only thing important for them is that there is nothing in the media that does not lead to a happy ending, and whether the daily news program on Serb Radio-Television will last just one minute and the daily Glas be published on two pages it is all the same to them. These are the criteria in Serb journalism nowadays.

For the end, there is the story with a moral lesson. In the beginning of 1994 (at the time when rumour started in Krajina that money was disappearing in Pale) bosses of a Serb weekly came to Momcilo Krajisnik to ask for money for publication of their journal. The sly fox sent them back by saying: "We do not have enough money at the moment, and we must give some to Glas srpski, you know they are the opposition. You are the good guys, so be patient for a while longer". This story shows once again that the politicians when media are concerned, are quite innocent: they respect (and pay) the journalists only as much as they fear them. And they do not respect them as much as journalists strive to become a part of them. The good guys are needed by nobody. Because the politicians know best who they are.

Zeljko Cvijanovic