Professionalism in the State-Controlled Media

A NEW COLOUR OF POLITICAL SUITABILITY

What the international community and Serbian leaders nowadays call professionalisation of the government-controlled media is just another name for political eligibility hidden behind pseudo-journalistic terminology

AIM Banja Luka, April 7, 1998

Is there a Serbian media miracle? There is, according to well-intentioned people from the international organizations temporarily working in Bosnia who in the last few moths praised the government media in the Republic of Srpska, almost as much as they praised Milorad Dodik. On the other hand, there is no miracle if one is to trust his own unreliable senses, which between a dense forest of empty stories about professionalism and facts are able to discern that the professionalisation of the SRT only implies the shifting of information about the B&H Federation in the News to the national news slot and those on the FRY to the Foreign Affairs Section; the fact that SRNA is no longer loyal to Pale which caused its financial collapse and reduced agency news; that the "new democratic concept" is the same as the previous one, only without Moma Joksimovic, in a role of Krsta Cicvaric of modern journalism; that another weekly "Javnost" (Publicity) has turned objective when it stopped coming out, etc. But, first things first!

It is not easy to criticize Serbian state media today without running a risk of being accused of nostalgia for the SDS, the more so as everyone is lulled with showers of praises from those whose word counts most in the Republic of Srpska today. Needless to say, these are international representatives in Bosnia in charge of the media. Only two weeks ago Simon Hayslock, spokesman for Carlos Vestendorp, the most solid firm in Bosnia, said that "the way that the media in the RS have opted for, as well as journalism in the Republic of Srpska in general, could serve as an example to the media in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina". That same day, Peter Clark, spokesman for the SFOR, commended the SRNA Agency for "showing readiness to report precisely and objectively, fully checking the source of information and thus demonstrating its wish to work in accordance with the international standards". At the same time, SRT (Serbian Radio and Television) is mentioned as a standard of journalistic impartiality, which would be probably said of the "Glas srpski" (The Serbian Voice) also, if only some of the modest circulation of this only Serbian daily could reach the desks of the representatives of international organizations.

LIBERTINE DEMAGOGY: Everyone who doubts that pigs can fly, seriously doubts that the people have come from all over the world to Banjaluka to turn SRT into CNN. But, at the same time, interestingly enough no one of those committed to freedom of expression, questions the criteria of quality of the media these people are promoting. Tomas Miljerina, an important figure in the world of Serbian journalism, suggested that the government media "should offer to consumers of information services stark facts on the basis of which they will form their own opinion". Similar original idea was repeated by Minister of Information in the RS Government, Rajko Vasic, who said that the RS Government wanted "media which would not be in the service of political authorities, but the public, which should get hard facts in order to be able to decide for itself". The almighty SRT supervisor, the Austrian diplomat, Dragan Gasic, made a step further in his interview to "Reporter" when commending journalists he suggested: "Everything that is said should be printed, as long as it is not rabble-rousing or insulting".

The conclusion follows: None of these predominant criteria concern professional issues, but rather political fairness. Because if, for example, Momcilo Krajisnik, who still holds a responsible position, states that a way for resolving the problem of refugees in the RS is to build a concrete pillarbox for each of them, according to Gasic's criterion the SRT would not be able to broadcast this statement as it sounds like warmongering. On the other hand, it is highly unlikely that the CNN would let such a "cookie" which it is used at getting from the "President in the Presidency", slip through its fingers. The greatest demagogy which the journalistic libertines resort to is insistence on the language of hard facts. Theory of information simply doesn't recognize or acknowledge such a category, as facts do not exist without a person which is telling them.

For example, this is how a journalist of the Pale TV "Channel S" would probably describe the atmosphere in the war capital of the Republic of Srpska: "The election of the new RS Government marked the beginning of the agony of refugees employed in the government institutions in Pale". A journalist from Banjaluka, closer to Gasic, would put it this way: " The RS Government is not able to finance the overstaffed bureaucratic machinery in Pale it inherited from the old Government". Both statements are just hard facts, and the only thing they have in common is that some people in Pale have some difficulties.

MARKET PROP-WORDS: All this shows that neither the Government nor the international community have any interest in the true quality of the government media in the RS. What both call professionalism, hard facts or impartiality is just another name for political fairness or suitability. That is how the Serbs call it. This political correctness is that easier to wrap in demagogic pseudo-professional terms as during the SDS rule it was reduced to its own caricature, triteness and primitiveness. After that, new people can easily achieve this level of correctness, which nevertheless, shouldn't be confused with professionalism. For example, long is the list of important events and subjects which the SRT did not follow for the sake of that same correctness: it would suffice to remember the construction of the Federation's military testing ground in the territory of Serbian villages around Glamoc, and similar trifles.

Apart from that, with this post-SDS enthusiasm, both the international community and the Government are trying to introduce another basic demagogic notion into their treatment of the media. Thus Rajko Vasic, Minister of Information, said that in the forthcoming period the government media will have to win its independence from the budget. In other words, the Government will not influence its media either by force or by money. They will have to rely on the market. This raises a question: If it doesn't want to influence the media why the Government did not leave Miroslav Toholj, a man who knows this problem area best, at the helm of the SRT, as he would certainly not be under its influence.

Naturally, something else is in question: Vasic, understanding that government media are an expensive toy, is not willing to give money and since he has inherited a chaos, the best he can do with the panic-stricken media directors who hound him these days is talk about the advantages of the market. And the fact that for the next ten years no media, government and non-government alike, will be able to live off the market in the RS, as well as that only eight percent of the economy operates on that market and that there is only trade in roundwood and demagogic prop-words, is no concern of his but rather of the Minister of Economy. Naturally, Minister is not the one who would resort to a market measure and proclaim unconstitutional the additional ten dinars tax included in phone bills for RTV subscription.

PROFESSIONALS AGAINST PSALTERISTS: Finally, in all this one has to make a distinction between interests of the international community and those of the Government. The first is fed up with the former SRT which compared it with something between cannibals and Vermacht. Everyone who after that left the international community alone is politically correct which is, as a token of its good will, called professionalism. On the other hand, the Government has no clear picture about professionalisation of the media. No new men have been brought and none of the old dismissed; there is not a single new column in any of the papers; everything is just as it was, with the only exception that the enemies are no longer enemies and that despite numerous problems everything is heading towards an incredible happy-end, in which everything will be again as it used to be. For, when the SRT decided to exclude the gusle-playing shows from its programme, that didn't only mean that it has discarded two thirds of its archival popular music footage, but rather that it has introduced political censorship which will not bring journalists closer to their profession, but only to a new form of political suitability. Ultimately, this is only a new form of subservience which will not be as drastic as the previous one, but is basically the same.

The solution is simple. It is only natural for a new TV cast to support Dodik, just as it is natural for the RTS to be for Milosevic or BBC to support Blair. Something else is unnatural: why do the Minister of information and people from the state media claim that they only use hard facts when no one is publicly accusing them of anything. Also, the RTS and BBC have nothing in common, although they both support their political leaders. The problem is that the way they are doing it, leaves an impression that the RST and BBC have nothing in common. Only there and then can the talk about professionalism start.

Zeljko Cvijanovic

(AIM)