FINAL REPORT ON EDITORIAL CULTURES:

National coordinator: Igor Z. Zagar, Educational Research Institute & University of Primorska Researcher: Katja Zeljan

EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Project report prepared for EMEDIATE, WP3 Project title: EMEDIATE: Media and Ethics of a European Public Sphere from the Treaty of Rome to the ‘War on Terror’. EU Sixth Framework Program, Specific Targeted Research Project, Priority 7: Citizens and Governance in a Knowledge-Based Society. Project no. CIT2-CT-2004- 506027.

1 CONTENTS:

Introduction (3) Literature review General description of the literature review (6) Literature review (6) Interviews Analysis of interviews (17) Conclusions (22) Annotated bibliography Annotated bibliography with short abstracts (24) Books (24) PhD dissertations (45) Articles (45)

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1. INTRODUCTION

Serbs settled in the Balkan Peninsula in the 6th and 7th century and accepted Christianity in the 9th century. Civil strife and constant warfare with their Bulgarian, Greek, and Magyar neighbors characterized the early history of the . Raska, the first organized Serbian state, was probably founded in the early 9th century in the Bosnian mountains; it steadily expanded from the 10th century. Bulgaria, meanwhile, challenged Byzantium for sovereignty over the Serbs.

Stephen Nemanja, whom the Byzantine emperor recognized as grand zhupan of Serbia in 1159, founded a that ruled for two centuries. His son and successor assumed the title king of all Serbia in 1217 with the pope's blessing. However, the king's brother, Sava, archbishop of Serbia, succeeded in having papal influence eliminated from the kingdom; in 1219 he won recognition from the patriarch of Constantinople of an autocephalous . The Serbian kingdom was at first overshadowed by the rapid rise of the Bulgarian empire under Ivan II. (Ivan Asen), but under Stephen Dusan who became king in 1331 and czar in 1346, Serbia became the most powerful empire in the Balkan Peninsula, much of which it absorbed. Its might contrasted sharply with the decadent Byzantine Empire. Even among European states, Serbia was noted for its high economic, social, and cultural level. After Stephen's death in 1355, however, the empire decayed and fell victim to the onslaught of the Ottoman Turks.

In 16th century, Serbia became a Turkish province, with its pashas residing in . Turkish reverses in 17th- and 18th-century wars against Austria and Russia

3 revived Serbian hopes for independence. The liberation struggle began in 1804, when Karageorge (“Black George,” Serbian Karadjordje) led a rebellion that eventually freed the pashalik (province) of Belgrade from the Turks. Russia, also at war with Turkey, then formed an alliance with Serbia. The Treaty of Bucharest (1812) forced Turkish recognition of Serbian autonomy, but Russian preoccupation with Napoleon's invasion allowed the Turks to renew their tyranny in Serbia. A revolt flared in 1815 under Milos Obrenovic, who in 1817 procured the assassination of his rival Karageorge and became prince of Serbia. Much of Serbia's ensuing history revolved around the bloody feud between the Karadjordje and Obrenovic families. With the accession of Peter I. in 1903, the Karadjordjevic dynasty entrenched itself.

In 1912 the league declared war on and defeated Turkey, but the allies could not agree on division of the spoils. Dissatisfied with its failure to secure a major portion of in the first of the , Serbia in 1913 turned against and defeated its former Bulgarian ally in the . Serbia's victory made it the foremost Slavic power in the but greatly increased tensions with Austro- Hungarian empire. When a Serbian nationalist assassinated Austrian archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914, the empire declared war on Serbia, thus precipitating . The Serbian army fought bravely, but in 1915, when Bulgaria joined the Central Powers and Germany reinforced the Austrians, Serbia was overrun. The Serbian troops and government were evacuated to Kérkira (), where in 1917 Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, and Montenegrin representatives proclaimed the union of . In 1918 the Kingdom of the Serbs, , and , headed by Peter I of Serbia, officially came into existence. After that, the history of Serbia is essentially that of .

After the conquest and dismemberment of Yugoslavia in World War II, German occupation forces set up a puppet government in a much-diminished Serbia. The Serbs waged guerrilla warfare under the leadership of Draza Mihajlovic. Later, Marshal Tito and his pro-Communist partisans attracted the majority of the Yugoslav resistance fighters. The Yugoslav constitution of 1946 stripped Serbia of Macedonia, and Herzegovina, and , which became constituent . In

4 the postwar years, Serbia had one of the more conservative Yugoslav Communist governments. The desire of ethnic Albanians in for independence or for union with Albania resulted in periodic unrest.

In 1986, Slobodan Milosevic became leader of the Serbian Communist party. He and his supporters revived the vision of a “,” comprising Serbia proper, , Kosovo, and the Serb-populated parts of Croatia and . In May 1991, Serbia blocked the ascension of Croatian leader Stipe Mesic to the head of the collective presidency, triggering the breakaway of Slovenia and Croatia and the end of the old Yugoslavia. The Federal of Yugoslavia, established in 1992 by Serbia and Montenegro, was thoroughly dominated by Serbia, a situation that led by the end of the decade to a strong movement in Montenegro for increased autonomy or independence. Serbia was the main supplier of arms to ethnic Serbs fighting to expand their control of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In response, the United Nations imposed economic sanctions on Yugoslavia, which were eased in September 1994, after Yugoslavia announced it was cutting off aid to the Bosnian Serbs, and in late 1995 Serbia signed a peace accord with Bosnia and Croatia. Milan Milutinovic was elected president of Serbia in 1997, but most of the power remained in the hands of Milosevic, who became (1997–2000).

The Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) won early parliamentary elections held (December 2000) after Milosevic lost the Yugoslavian presidency to Vojislav Kostunica, and formed the first noncommunist, nonsocialist government in Serbia in 55 years. The DOS pledged to create a market economy and to dismantle the authoritarian state Milosevic had established, and subsequently (2001) turned the former president over to the UN war crimes tribunal at the Hague. In March 2002, a pact designed to preserve the federation was signed by Serbian and Montenegrin representatives. The pact, which was approved by the federal and republics' parliaments, gave both republics greater autonomy while maintaining a shared foreign and defense policy. The federation officially became the “state union” of Serbia and Montenegro in February 2003.

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2. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE LITERATURE REVIEW

Collection of literature regarding editorial policies of Serbian media presented the first phase of a survey. Serbian bibliographic system COBISS/OPAC and available services were accessed for this purpose. Many valuable sources and literature were found for Serbian case. Of course, not all sources were accessed on the Internet. A lot of literature was found during a visit to Serbia, especially in the National Library of Serbia. Books, articles and essays on editorial policies of Serbian media mainly refer to the period of the last decade and especially to the period after October 5, 2000 corresponding with national 'Resistance'. Some of the literature and magazines were generously donated by Veran Matic, editor-in-chief and responsible editor of B92, Media Centre in Belgrade and Independent Association of Serbian Journalists (NUNS).

10 books, 1 PhD dissertation and 39 articles matching this issue were found (see additional attachment with short abstracts on selected literature). The usability of matching results for this project’s goal is of great importance as it provides essential information on broader social and political contexts in which Serbian media operated and still operate.

3. LITERATURE REVIEW: NEWS-MAKING CULTURES

It is almost impossible to consider editorial policies of Serbian media without understanding wider social and political contexts in which they operated in the last decades. According to Bjelica (1997) the period immediately after the Second World

6 War was significantly characterized by Yugoslav Communist Party raising its power and influence in the former Yugoslav state. was considered as an agitator, a mean of propaganda and an organizer of worker’s movement. At that time a system of public informing was formed, mainly based on the principles of bolshevist theory of the press. According to this theory, press was not only obliged to inform, but it also had to fight for the Communist party’s goals and programmes, which it had to serve. In practice this meant that editorial staff got concrete missions and directives, mainly connected with agitation and propaganda. Press was, in other words, an agitator and propagandist of the Communist party and although Yugoslav political system experienced different reforms and changes in the second half of the 20th century, agitating model of public informing has remained practically unchanged.

Another element, also very crucial in understanding Serbian media and their editorial policies, is connected with very strong censorship which, as an instrument of cultural policy, was practiced in the Republic of Serbia during the socialist era in the 1945- 1990 periods. Considering specific features of censorship in publishing, Kesetovic (1998: 108) states that “although there was no formal legal censorship in the Republic of Serbia in the course of the specific period (1945-1990), there was a comprehensive ideological control in the sphere of culture and in the field of publishing in particular. The censorship (political and self-managing, i.e. unofficial) was present mainly in its preventive form and through auto-censorship, and only rarely in its repressive form, performed by administrative measures (involving judiciary and the police). Legislative, social and political position of publishing, as well as the distribution of political power among the state and para-state institutions, created favorable grounds for political and economic pressures which equaled highly efficient censorship. However, the censorship criteria (primarily political ones) were neither constant nor as rigid as in other socialist countries, and there were some more liberal periods of social development which were more encouraging for the development of arts and creativeness, although these were invariably followed by bouts of intensified repression and restriction. The limits of freedom, sometimes broader, sometimes narrower, have always existed and have objectively influenced the development of publishing”.

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Not surprisingly, not much literature critically reflecting editorial policies of Serbian media exists for the periods between 1945 and 1990. A valuable exception is Mihailo Bjelica’s work Media and Political Power: Investigation of Political Press and Journalism in Serbia (1945-1997) providing broader social and historical background in which Serbian media worked. According to Bjelica (1997), the first ideas of democratization of political system and a system of public information in Serbia arose in 1948. Indirect control, called ‘social self-management’, replaced direct control of the League of Communists in Yugoslav media. At that time the Socialist Association of Working People got the role of agitator bringing up important decisions regarding editorial policies of the media. Internal control of the media was therefore maintained through ‘society’s advices’ to them. It was not hard to realize that the League of Communists maintained the supervision of the whole system, including media. Despite the fact that this period is many times considered as a democratization period in the system of public informing, the process of democratization of the media was actually very much different in practice. Even later on, still in the period of Yugoslav social self-management, there were many normative and programmatic documents adopted in order to justify all citizens the rights and freedom to inform and to be informed. But those documents existed on paper only. In 1965, when the first ethical code of Yugoslav journalism was adopted, it was clearly stated that journalist is a social-political worker who consciously defends the ideas of socialism.

As Bjelica also states, in one-party system it was dissidents and other informal groups of professionals, mainly writers and artists, who fought for the freedom of the public word. After opposition was legalized in Serbia, this fight was led by political parties in and outside the parliament. However, it turned out that political parties tried to rule and not truly free the media. This is why one of the basic questions became how to free journalists from politics and politicians. In the period between 1987 and 1991, for instance, two media companies – and Radio Television Serbia (RTS) – with the monolithic position in the system of public informing were established. With the regime support, Politika established 20 different newspapers,

8 its radio station and television, while RTS (consisting of RTV Belgrade, RTV Novi Sad and RTV Pristina) represented the largest electronic media company in this part of Europe with almost 7000 employees. There is no doubt that Socialist Party of Serbia won the elections many times because of such a media support. However, it was difficult to see any objectivity, creativity and/or professionalism in those media as their journalism was not really a journalism, but more of a political propaganda. Moreover, it could be concluded that in the period between 1945 and 1989 Serbian journalism was under great influence and control of the leading party, which is, in Bjelica’s words, somehow normal and expected in the one-party system.

Generally speaking, there were two kinds of media in Serbia in the late 1980’s and 1990’s: those who were under state control and those who maintained their independent editorial policy.

The most influential media under state control was undoubtedly Radio Television Serbia (RTS) and its three programmes seen on the whole territory of the state. RTS was highly controlled media whose creator was Serbian government itself. Its editorial policy was directly influenced by the president of Serbia and his collaborators (RTS’s director and editor-in-chief cabinets were connected with Serbian Presidential Palace by a direct telephone-line). There was no doubt that RTS’s director and editor-in-chief faithfully served the governing party and its coalition partners. When Slobodan Milosevic was the president of Serbia, there was not one critical word about his politics. Journalists and other employees of RTS who did not want to contribute to the war propaganda and ethnical hatred – there were altogether 1100 of them – were fired or got a decree for 'forced holidays' in January 1993.1

1 The purge of journalists was, according to MM Centre and Independent Syndicates of Belgrade Television, a “part of the process intended to establish an absolute control, in particular over the prime-time radio and television news programmes and critically intoned magazines. A populist concept was simultaneously imposed on cultural and musical programmes. The first steps towards a greater openness of some RTV programmes were replaced by the blatant propaganda of the ruling party. The new editorial concept was largely built on creating an image of the world conspiring against Serbia and settling the accounts with those who upheld different political views. The process involved the abolition of the best programmes, dismantling of entire desks, silencing of magazines and talk-shows. Unsuitable professionals were replaced by obedient beginners and politicised dabblers, party propagandists, members and supporters of the Socialist Party of Serbia and the Serbian Radical Party, and a large number of refugees. Generously rewarded, they have all turned into commentators, editors and programme hosts overnight” (1993: 87).

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The most influential newspaper under state control was the oldest newspaper in the Balkans, Politika (Politics), whose circulation reached between 300.000 and 400.000 copies per day. Other dailies with the highest circulation such as Vecernje Novosti (Evening News), Ekspres Politika (Express Politics) and (Struggle) were also under state control. Another important regime-service was press agency Tanjug (which is an acronym for ‘Press Agency of the New Yougoslavia). Its director was an important member of governing party, and - among other things - the journalist who was covering (for Tanjug and RTS) all President Milosevic’s visits abroad.

On the other hand, there were independent media with low circulation, but much higher credibility, such as Nasa Borba (Our Struggle) daily, (Time) weekly, radio station B92, TV station Studio B and press agency Beta. Later on, other media appeared, such as Demokratija (), Gradjanin (Citizen) and (Today), which can also be perceived as independent. Political leadership of Serbia and media under state control regularly criticized independent media for being under the oppositional and foreign influence. The fact was that independent media in Serbia got important donations from abroad (especially from EU and Soros foundation), but those donations were established as a contribution to the growth of democracy and not as a channel of influence on their editorial policies.

Expectations that a fall of a socialist regime, a change of political system and arrival of pluralist democracy will also changed Serbian journalism, turned out as wrong. Perhaps one of the most illustrative examples how media operated in that time comes from the publication Toward Democratizing Broadcasting written by Prvoslav Pasic, Radojkovic and Rade Veljanovski and published by Soros Yugoslavia Foundation in 1993. As the authors write, the dynamics of crisis in the eighties, as the background for the subsequent tragic solution to the Yugoslav 'riddle', was essentially marked with 'media wars'. They have had several stages, among which four are especially important:

10 1. The war against the media, that is, concentrated efforts of late-communist regime to bridle tendencies towards the autonomy of the public sphere as an essential presupposition for a mature 'civil society' independent of state. At this stage, the efforts of some journalists, and even whole staffs, to break the bonds of control and reject 'self-management' information strategies imposed from above met with bitter resistance from the regime, which rightly perceived this tendency as the threat of losing its grip.

2. The second stage was the war for the media, especially on the eve of the 'Eight Session Coup' in Serbia, ending in takeover of the most important means of mass communication (television and prestigious newspapers above all).

3. The third stage was the preparation of the media for war, which was imminent. It was characterized by the saturation of the media production by the 'Balkan syndrome' – the historicization of politics and politicization of history. The assertion that media preparation directly preceded and hastened the later 'exchange of information' through cannons is not an exaggeration.

4. Long-range weapons were first tried in the fourth stage – the media war, characterized by hyper-production of national mythology inciting ethnic prejudice and stereotypes, and passionate preaching of inter-ethnic intolerance and hatred.

Public information subsystem in Serbia during the period between 1983 and 1993 has been the field of action of opposite tendencies: on the one hand, toward the liberation of the media and the public sphere from heteronymous influence and control, and, on the other hand, persistent attempts to break the resistance of the media and public opinion by combined methods of repression and techniques of para-legal and extra-legal pressure. This introduced, among other things, the next stage of the media wars - that is the war for influencing the media, the war between the ruling party and the opposition. Its peak on March 9, 1991, and partial concessions by the regime to the demands of the opposition, created a pool of destructive social energy, dangerous for the regime and threatening its survival.

11 Thus, this energy was directed outwards and channeled into the war that started among the Yugoslav peoples (Pasic, Radojkovic, Veljanovski, 1993: 8-9).

The repression over the media (and within them) grew more intense with the beginning of the war in former Yugoslavia, especially from the middle of 1992 on. From a point of view of many, it was precisely the media that started the war on ex- Yugoslav territory. In Politika Daily, for instance, a special page was dedicated to people’s views and reactions: it turned out that this was a very common field for many students, members of Serbian Academy and other intellectuals expressing their views about other Yugoslav nations threatening the Serbs and about Serbs as always being in an inferior position in comparison to other Yugoslav nations. From their point of view it was Serbs who have always been heroic, patriotic and honest people, while the other nations hated Serbs. Vecernje Novosti and Ekspres Politika, two other dailies under the state control, and national TV had almost the same editorial concepts. On the one hand, the media under state regime were growing patriotism and national pride while on the other they kept repeating that Serbian nation should no longer suffer from humiliating position in ex-Yugoslavia. It is also interesting to note that media under the state control were developing xenophobia toward the (whole) world at that time. Texts writers and TV guests talked about conspiracy of Vatican toward the Serbs, about new world development without place for Serbia, about continued hate of Germany and Austria from the Second World War and United States’ and Western countries’ hostility toward them. When a war in Croatia and in Bosnia started, media under state control became means of propaganda for the current Serbian regime. Journalist who did not want to be a part of war propaganda promoting ethnical and religious hatred, were put on the list for ‘forced holidays’ or were fired. During the war, Serbian state canceled the registration of Borba daily and TV station Studio B and took control of them. This was the main reason why majority of journalist left Borba and created newspaper called Nasa Borba, while Studio B remained under supervision of Belgrade city government.

As already mentioned, another evidence of repression over the media at that time could be find in the hostile attitude toward oppositional parties appearing on Serbian

12 political scene with the introduction of pluralist political system in the 1990. This was particularly evident in the pre-election periods. According to Matic (2002), in the 1990’s the media represented parliamentary elections in Serbia as free and fair ones, but not even in one case – and this is a kind of Serbian record among all post- communist societies – a fair and independent treatement of political actors running in the elections was achieved. Such unfairness especially characterized state media, which were by the law obliged to establish equal possibilities for everybody running in the elections. Since the first pluralist parliamentary elections in 1990, media presentations of elections did not satisfy the needs of the (general) public, as it mainly served the needs of the leading political party and its coalition. Media functioning in 1990’s did not reach its optimal role in electoral processes, Matic writes. Electoral race in 1992, 1993 and 1996 were no exception in this regard.

The most obvious repression over Serbian media was nevertheless found in the period after the autumn 1997, with the beginning of Slobodan Milosevic’s political regime. At that time, editor-in chief and responsible editor of informative programme at TV Belgrade were replaced together with editors of the most influential and popular political TV shows. New editors became people expressing the strongest support to Milosevic’s regime and criticizing the former political regime. The same replacements took place in Politika daily and Nin weekly. The best journalists and editors were replaced, they were forbidden to write, and many of them left their redactions forever. Those willing to obey the current political regime took over their places.

There are numerous cases how media operated under Milosevic’s political regime. The most ‘faithful’ to Milosevic and his government were undoubtedly Radio Television Belgrade (RTS) and Politika daily. According to Stankovic (2000), editors and journalists of Television Belgrade have adopted ideology of governing political parties and behaved as their advocates. This was very much seen in selection and interpretation of texts and editions, as much as in falsified information. Therefore the media manipulation was in the essence of editorial policy of TV Belgrade, preventing any kind of criticism of current political regime and president Slobodan Milosevic.

13 Reality was ignored, but, on the other hand, fear, nationalistic and political hatred, verbal terror, threats and assaults toward independent media were favoured. Any kind of different thinking and the right to answer, which are the base for responsible journalism, were completely unknown to editorial policy of information programme on TV Belgrade. As Matic (2000) writes, Politika remained faithful to the editorial concept characterizing all pro-government media to which the fixing up of reality and the avoidance of truth were a profession. In order to 'produce' and promote optimism with all their strength, thanks to alleged victories, reconstruction, reforms and development, they sacrificed the profession and truth of their own free will. The long-time general manager of this newspaper and its eternal acting chief and managing editor, Hadzi Dragan Antic, would not have remained behind the wheel for such a long time had he not adhered blindly to the formula applicable to all pro- government media. In Politika, Borba, Ekspres and Vecernje Novosti, the life was persistently described as if seen in a distorted mirror. They wrote only about things that were to the benefit of the ruling trio, while at the same time hushing up everything that might blame it for failure, misfortune and increasing poverty, Matic emphasizes.

On the other hand, independent media reflected different kind of reality. Radio B92, the backbone of Serbian resistance against Milosevic’s regime, was a kind of inversion, the complete opposite of Milosevic's reality. As Collin (2001: 4) writes, what B92 tried to do “was to create a parallel world, one in which people still cherished human right and justice, in which the world wasn't split into believers and heretics, good Serbs and delinquents, fighters for the heavenly kingdom and the evil forces of Western decadence. They dreamed of a word without borders, without xenophobia and hatred. They chose the international call-signs of techno and rock'n'roll over the parochial, folksy paeans to nationalism: the music of life over the music of death. They tried to tune into global progressive signals rather than the flatline monotone of isolation, while all around them Serbia looked inwards, gnawing on its own bones. In a country were politics and culture became one and the same – vehicles for unhappiness and oppression, orchestrated by the state and its lackeys – theirs was a vibrant cultural resistance, a unique fusion of pop culture and politics.

14 They tried to keep alive some semblance of normal life, and of the spirit which thrived in the decade before the craziness took hold and turned them into marked men, citizen of one of the most hated nations on earth.”

However, it could not be said that Slobodan Milosevic's regime 'had forgotten' about non-regime media. On the contrary. As Andric (2000) writes, it seems that the pressures had reached the top just in the second half of 2000. From Andric’s point of view, the Regime's attention was especially drawn to the editorial staff of the three independent daily newspapers – (Blitz), (Voice of Public) and Danas. These newspapers represented the main source of information to the great number of Belgrade citizens. Namely, Belgrade was deprived of the independent television (Studio B), and the work of independent radio stations was limited – due to the constant jamming, even the people from the centre of Belgrade could not hear Radio Index and B2-92. Fight of the regime with daily newspapers was conducted in two ways: psychological propaganda (libeling, threats, accusations) and economic (artificial shortage of newsprint, more exactly, prevention of the purchase of paper), the second one seemed more effective in smothering of independent daily newspapers.

National ‘Resistance’, starting with 5th October 2000, is believed to be the new beginning for the Serbian media. According to Curgus Kazimir (2001: 36-37), “the most important thing is that the situation did change to the effect that the media in Serbia today have by far more freedom and independence in both professional and political terms. The freedom of expression is no longer brutally and overtly endangered as was the case during the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. Still, the situation is not really ideal. New forms of pressure are starting to appear – primarily derived from the legal status inherited by the media and the information sphere in general. Although journalists are no longer endangered by politicians, they are still threatened by the criminal groups and corrupt local power holders. Thus, a reporter for Vecernje novosti, Milan Pantic was killed in 2001, after he had started writing about crime and corruption in his local environment. His murderer and the person who ordered the assassination have not been identified yet. Furthermore, the case of

15 another journalist killed in Milosevic times, Slavko Curuvija (owner and editor of the weekly Europljanin (The European)) still remains unsolved. These cases additionally hamper the normalization of relations and establishment of trust between the media and the government”.

As many authors note (Arsenijevic, 2001; Cosic, 2001) it took only a few days after October 5 for correspondents of the so-called state media to change into new clothes, drop their party uniforms and offer their services to the new master, while the others (David, 2001:13) emphasize that “a particular means of maintaining the past 'cultural model', that is, all the chief mental frames, stereotypes and propagandist slogan used by Milosevic regime, is now being supplied through 'the secret idiom' of messages, interlarded 'between the lines' in articles of most diverse contents, from politics and economy to culture and entertainment. This new hermeneutics is exemplified by many instances available from all media, including those admittedly independent. The venom of prejudice, fake image of reality, separate virtual realities created by the toughest fallacies, are all still around and the phantasmagorias which have sprung from 'the people-happening' have remained ingrained in the editorial policies and most read and viewed media alike.”

As Curgus Kazimir (2001) points out, on the other hand there is no doubt that the most media strongly support the democratization, reforms and modernization of the country. Attitudes toward the past, the Hague Tribunal and crimes committed under Milosevic, are also important for the normalization and democratization of Serbia and Yugoslavia. Facing the past has thus become the topic that media no longer avoid from tackling. Naturally, the largest contribution in this respect is that of independent media such as RTV B92, daily Danas and weeklies Vreme and Reporter. They are still exposed to attacks of radical nationalists and neofascists, but the public opinion is, globally speaking, far more open and ready to face the truth now than it was a decade or even a few years ago. Yet, after the introduction of democracy in Serbia its media are still characterized by all typical traits of an ongoing transition (Markovic, 2001). Legislation is late in enforcement, the privileged ones kept their prerogatives, tax concessions are none, long-overdue transformation of state media is yet to come.

16 Because of all this, the state- and privately-owned media are now facing a great uncertainty. As Markovic also notes, the state is formally committed to editorial and economic independence, but practically it has left things unchanged alongside the former regime's pressure apparatus. As an expected equal footing has failed to materialize, the chances of it happening are steadily becoming smaller. The media, especially the local ones in the country's interior, have undergone minor changes, coming down to new managerial appointments, the author concludes.

4. ANALYSIS OF INTERVIEWS

13 selected media (radio stations B92 and B202, Beta Press Agency, television stations RTS and BK TV, Nin and Evropa/Europe weeklies, and Danas/Today, Politika/Politics, Blic, Vecernje novosti/Evening News, Vreme/Time and /Courier dailies) were invited to participate in the project. 9 media (B92, B202, Beta Press Agency, RTS, Nin, Today, Politics, Blic and Time) decided to participate in the project, while the others (BK TV, Evening News, Europe and Courier) ignored our requests.

11 interviews were conducted for the purpose of the project in the period between 22nd and 29th June 2005 in Belgrade (see additional report on a visit to Serbia). The interviewees were:

- Veran Matic, editor-in-chief and responsible editor of B92 - Ljubisa Trifunovic, editor-in-chief and responsible editor of B202 - Srboljub Bogdanovic, editor of external policy redaction at Nin magazine - Ljubica Markovic, director of Beta Press agency - Dragan Janjic, editor-in-chief and responsible editor of Beta Press agency - Veselin Simonovic, editor-in-chief and responsible editor of Blic daily - Branka Kerkez, editor of external policy redaction at RTS - Seska Stanojlovic, editor of external policy issues at Time daily - Grujica Spasovic, editor-in-chief and responsible editor of Today daily - Aleksandar Sposic, editor of external policy issues at Today daily

17 - Milan Misic, editor-in-chief and responsible editor of Politics daily

Findings:

In a view of Serbian interviewees the most important value in the culture of journalism today is accuracy. Interviewees also mentioned other values, such as exactitude, objectivity, critical distance toward government and control of state, educational role of the media… Some of them exposed low level of journalism in Serbia and low economic status of Serbian journalists. According to the Serbian editors, there are no special rules how to maintain those dominant journalistic values, at least not on a systematic level. Much depends on how editorial boards and journalists provide and maintain values that journalism should struggle for. In a view of all interviewees, journalism is crucial to how a community/country forms its values as journalists play important role in shaping public opinion. This fact can have positive or negative implications, as turned out during the wars in ex-Yugoslavia. A newspaper or broadcaster does not automatically reflect society’s values, at least not in view of majority of Serbian interviewees. If this was the case, one of the interviewees said, this would really be bad for the media. Nevertheless, majority of interviewees was convinced that the most important values could be exposed/emphasized over time by journalists, especially in the last period, after the end of war. One of the editors also pointed out that the state and its policy should provide free media space, so that the media could expose important values for the whole society.

Majority of the interviewees claimed that journalistic values should have been the same in different periods of time, although many of them pointed out that Serbian journalism had changed drastically in last 10,15 years, especially in a sense of different working conditions for journalists and the whole attitude toward journalism in a society. In the past, journalists simply could not afford to do some things they are able to do now (for instance, they could not question the existence of one-party political system, existence of state socialism and the role of President Tito). Still, in view of many, the most important journalistic values, such as accuracy,

18 exactitude, truth and independence existed in the past and exist nowadays, although it was much more difficult to achieve them in the past. The answers of the interviewees whether the journalists have considered the value change varied a lot. Some of them thought that journalist were aware of the value change, while some of them pointed out that this was not the case in Serbia. And what brought a value change? Some of the interviewees thought it was the last war and that different political options are yet now about to emerge.

According to Serbian editors, structure of ownership and market forces has important impact on the values, practices and processes of journalism today. Moreover, the ownership of media is a crucial element in understanding how Serbian media operate. Here, it is necessary to point out that in Serbia it is not yet clear, which media are state media and which are not: this is also a reason why many media are still supported by a state budget. On the other hand, state television, for instance, has not yet transformed into the public service. Ownership structures in many media are practically the same as in the time of Slobodan Milosevic. According to one of the interviewees, current state of affairs does not support the transformation of the media and this is why the state still controls the media. The state provides money to many media and for that reason those media are not in a position to criticize the state. Of course, not all of the media are owned by a state. Some, especially printed media, also have foreign owners: those owners do not intervene in editorial policy of the media, their only interest is making profit. Our interviewees had different opinions whether independent journalism in Serbia exists: some of them thought this was mainly the case in marginal, oppositional media, while the others were convinced there was no such thing as independent journalism, not just in Serbia, but globally speaking. Many of the interviewees mentioned economical dependence of the media and journalists on their owners. One of the editors, regarding his media as independent, expressed interesting point of view: »It is a paradox that our greatest problem is our professionalism. More professional and socially active we are, worse the situation is. In a market sense, of course. Why? Because everybody demands just entertainment and fun… And there is this entertainment and fun

19 everywhere. Finally, you have a feeling that in the media there is nothing but entertainment and fun…«

According to the interviewees, in Serbia there are still enough brave media to raise contested or controversial issues. There are actually two types of media dealing with such issues: on one hand, there are tabloids building their circulation with different affairs, and there is also more professional investigating journalism, as seen, for instance, in B92 and Danas. Contested issues (high-level political stories, social issues etc.) allow different values and practices to emerge, majority of interviewees said, especially if contested issues are related to corruption, political and economic interest. There is no doubt that urgent stories allow less controlled reporting. According to some editors it is important that journalistic credibility is not endangered because of that.

All of interviewed Serbian editors agreed that technological changes influenced journalistic culture, practice and processes dramatically over the past 10-15 years. Not all of them were convinced that technological change had brought value change. But there is no doubt that journalists are working differently because of technological changes today. Some of the interviewees talked about the revolution in this area, particularly after Internet revolution, which played important role for both journalism and Serbian society. Also the audiences demand different things today, which are very much seen in high circulation of tabloids and 'infotainment', although some of the interviewees expressed opinion that such needs had been artificially created.

Answers whether there is a recognisable ‘European’ journalistic culture in a sense that there are values, standards (including ethical standards) and practices that reflect a specifically European sense of identity and/or common purpose varied a lot among the interviewees. According to some it could be said that something as European journalism exists, but the others thought that there was no such thing and that it would be better to differentiate between national journalistic cultures. This group of interviewees also differentiated between American and European journalistic school. It should also be stressed that the identity of “European

20 journalism” could not be captured in a statement, a writing , a story idea, a brand identity, at least not in a point of view of the majority of editors interviewed. Rather, they regard 'European journalism' in a sense of European topics and issues.

A concept of ‘Europe’ is seen as absolutely positive by all interviewed Serbian editors. The concept of ‘Europe’ in their opinion, however, could not be operationalised in such way as to facilitate the production of some kinds of articles and hinder the production of others. In this moment many of Serbian media do not yet have information about how readers/listeners/viewers respond to ‘European’ coverage as there has been a long anti-European tradition in the state for years. But one of the editors, whose newspaper established systematical reporting on Europe among the first in the country, said that responses are very, very good.

The relationship between journalists and readers/viewers changed drastically in the past 10-15 years, interviewees confirmed. The audience got totally different role and importance thanks to technologic, economic and above all political changes in the country. A lot has been done to satisfy relatively low taste of a Serbian public in last years, report many of the interviewees. This is one of the negative aspects of media liberalization. On the other hand, readers/viewers have now a possibility to contact journalists directly – by email or phone, which is very positive. Feedbacks are much higher because of this fact.

In a view of majority of interviewees, there is no special pattern to the way in which ‘European’ topics or issues (i.e. issues connected with the governance, enlargement, and political agenda of the European Union and the European project generally) are dealt with in their publication/broadcasting station. Moreover, there is no cenzorship regarding 'European' topics and issues. Majority of editors yet confirmed that European stories are usually selected when they have direct national relevance and when they might be interesting for their readers/listeners/viewers. An “European” story is uninteresting to national readers when it is not connected with their lifes or when such story is a badly made journalistic work. Also, there are no special “house rules” on “European” stories in majority of the Serbian media which participated in this project.

21

5. CONCLUSIONS

Editorial policies of Serbian media have been dramatically characterized by the state control and strong (auto)censorship in the past. After the Second World War press was considered as an agitator, a mean of propaganda and an organizer of worker’s movement. In a practice this meant that editorial staffs got concrete missions and directives, mainly connected with agitation and propaganda. Although Yugoslavian political system experienced different reforms and changes from 1945 until the beginning of 1990’s, agitating/propagandistic model of public informing has remained practically unchanged.

Expectations that a fall of a socialist regime, a change of a political system and arrival of pluralistic democracy will also chang Serbian journalism, turned out as wrong. Media functioning in 1990’s were significantly characterized by hyper- production of national mythology inciting ethnic prejudice and stereotypes, and passionate preaching of inter ethnic intolerance, xenophobia and hatred. Another evidence of repression over media at that time could be find in the hostile relation toward oppositional parties appearing on Serbian political scene with the introduction of pluralist political system in the 1990. This was particularly evident in pre-election periods.

The repression over media (and within them) grew more intense with the beginning of the war in former Yugoslavia, especially from the middle of 1992 on. The most obvious repression over Serbian media was nevertheless found in the period after the autumn 1997, with the beginning of Slobodan Milosevic’s political regime. The most ‘faithful’ to Milosevic and his government were undoubtedly Radio Television Belgrade (RTS) and Politika daily, where editors and journalists of Television Belgrade have adopted ideology of governing political parties and behaved as their advocates. This was very much seen in selection and interpretation of texts and editions, as much as in falsified information. Therefore the media manipulation was in the essence of editorial policy of TV Belgrade, preventing any kind of criticism of current political regime and President Slobodan Milosevic. Reality was ignored, but,

22 on the other hand, fear, nationalistic and political hatred, verbal terror, threats and assaults against independent media were favored. On the other hand, there were independent media with low circulation, but higher credibility, such as Nasa Borba daily, Vreme weekly, radio station B92, TV station Studio B and press agency Beta. Later on, there appeared other media, such as Demokratija, Gradjanin and Danas, which can also be perceived as independent.

National ‘Resistance’ corresponding with the events of 5th October 2000 is believed to be a new beginning for the Serbian media. According to Curgus Kazimir (2001: 36- 37), “the most important thing is that the situation did change to the effect that the media in Serbia today have by far more freedom and independence in both professional and political terms. The freedom of expression is no longer brutally and overtly endangered as it was the case during the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. Still, the situation is not really ideal. New forms of pressure are coming up – primarily deriving from the legal status inherited by the media and the information sphere in general. Although journalists are no longer endangered by politicians, they are still threatened by the criminal groups and corrupt local power holders. Such cases additionally hamper the normalization of relations and establishment of trust between the media and the new government.

As Curgus Kazimir (2001) also writes, today, there is no doubt that most media strongly support the democratization, reforms and modernization of the country. Attitudes towards the past, the Hague Tribunal and crimes committed under Milosevic, are also important for the normalization and democratization of Serbia and Yugoslavia. Facing the past has thus become the topic the media no longer avoid from tackling. Journalism is, generally speaking, becoming more professional and is facing radical changes in the last years, especially in the sense of different working conditions for journalists and the whole attitude toward journalism in society.

23 ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY WITH SHORT ABSTRACTS

1. BOOKS

Bjelica, Mihailo. (1997). Media and Political Power. Investigation of Political Press and journalism in Serbia (1945-1997). Belgrade: Institute for Political Studies & Working Press.

This monograph is one of the crucial sources to understand the history of Serbian press and journalism, as much as the role of the media and their editorial policies.

According to the author the period between 1944 and 1945 was characterized by Yugoslav Communist Party raising its power and influence in the state. Press was considered as an agitator, a mean of propaganda and organizer of worker’s movement. At that time a system of public informing was formed, mainly based on the principles of bolshevist theory of the press. In this theory, a press was not only obliged to inform, but it also had to fight for the goals and programmes of the party, which it served. In practice this meant that editorial staffs got concrete missions and directives, mainly connected with agitation and propaganda. Press was, in other words, an agitator and propagandist of the Communist party and although Yugoslavian political system experienced different reforms and changes in the next half of the century, agitating model of public informing has remained practically unchanged.

After 1948, the first ideas of democratization of political system and a system of public information arose. Indirect control called social self-management replaced direct control of the League of Communists in Yugoslav media. At that time the Socialist Association of Working People got the role of agitator bringing up important decisions regarding editorial policies of the media. Internal control of the media was therefore maintained through ‘society’s advices’ to them. It was not hard to realize that the League of Communists maintained the supervision over the whole system, including media. Despite the fact that this period is many times considered as a

24 democratization period in the system of public informing, the process of democratization of the media was actually very much different in practice. Even later on, still in a period of Yugoslav social self-management, there were many normative and programmatic documents adopted in order to justify all citizens the rights and freedom to inform and to be informed. But those documents existed on paper only; the truth was that only those rights and freedoms were adopted, which served the one-party system. In 1965, when the first ethical code of Yugoslav journalism was adopted, it was clearly stated that a journalist is a social-political worker who consciously defends the ideas of socialism.

In one-party system it was dissidents and other informal groups of professionals, mainly writers and artists, who fought for the freedom of a public word. After opposition was legalized in Serbia, this fight was led by political parties in and outside the parliament. However, it turned out that political parties tried to rule and not free the media. And political centres were always stronger than journalists. This is why one of the basic questions became how to free journalist from politics and politicians. In a period between 1987 and 1991, for instance, two media companies – Politika and Radio Television Serbia – with the monolithic position in a system of public informing were established. With a regime support, Politika established 20 different newspapers, radio station and television, while RTS (consisting of RTV Belgrade, RTV Novi Sad and RTV Pristina) presented the largest electronic media company in this part of Europe with almost 7000 employees. There is no doubt that Socialist Party of Serbia won the elections many times because of such media support. However, it could hardly be seen objectivity, creativity and professionalism in those media as their journalism was not really a journalism, but more a political propaganda. Moreover, it could be concluded that in the period between 1945 and 1989 Serbian journalism was under a great influence and control of the leading party, which is somehow normal and expected fact in one-party system. However, expectations that a change of a political system and arrival of pluralistic democracy will also changed journalism, turned out as wrong. As this book illustrates on several cases, political journalism in Serbia still depends on politics. The overall conclusion

25 drawing on those facts confirms that the attitude of main Serbian media between 1990 and 1997 was not consistent with the basic goals of a democratic

Collin, Matthew. (2001). Guerrilla Radio: Rock'n'Roll Radio and Serbia's Underground Resistance. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, Nation Books

This book is about Radio B92, known as a symbol of resistance to a political regime created by Slobodan Milosevic. Written by an American writer it explains the role of one of the fewest independent media opposing undemocratic regime in the country. Here are some quotations from the book:

What they had was a small radio station – a student channel which evolved into one of the most powerful, dynamic and challenging broadcasters in the Balkans; one which compared favourably with the finest in Europe. This story revolves around that station, Radio B92, or B2-92 as it became known after state intervention usurped its premises, its frequency and its name. B92's tale mirrors the torrid contemporary history of Serbia – but, like all mirror images, it is an inversion, the complete opposite of Milosevic's reality. Whatever happened in the city was reflected by B92; the political riots, the protests against the war in Bosnia, the vicious state crackdowns, the Draconian laws and the bully boys in their black leather jackets, the glory days of winter of 1996-1997, when it seemed that people would finally carry all before them – and the depression which came afterwards, when little really changed. Whenever political opposition flourished, they were right there, broadcasting it and amplifying it. Their voice could only be silenced by the crudest of interventions, and even then it returned, irrepressible, an energy which could not be destroyed. But most importantly, what they tried to do was create a parallel world, one in which people still cherished human right and justice, in which the world wasn't split into believers and heretics, good Serbs and delinquents, fighters for the heavenly kingdom and the evil forces of Western decadence. They dreamed of a word without borders, without xenophobia and hatred. They chose the international call-signs of techno and rock'n'roll over the parochial, folksy paeans to nationalism: the music of life over the music of death. They tried to tune into global progressive signals rather

26 than the flatline monotone of isolation, while all around them Serbia looked inwards, gnawing on its own bones. In a country were politics and culture became one and the same – vehicles for unhappiness and oppression, orchestrated by the state and its lackeys – theirs was a vibrant cultural resistance, a unique fusion of pop culture and politics. They tried to keep alive some semblance of normal life, and of the spirit which thrived in the decade before the craziness took hold and turned them into marked men, citizen of one of the most hated nations on earth. (p. 4)

Veran Matic, who secured the job of editor-in-chief, says B92 was founded on the principles of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights: the right to personal liberty, justice, freedom from discrimination, freedom of movement, free elections and a free press. B92 appeared at the point when Milosevic had begun to extend his influence over the Serbian media through a series of purges. Yet Matic's reporters and DJs imagined they could push the boundaries of what was possible in one-party Communist state where most radio stations broadcast a safe, controlled mixture of official news and mainstream rock music. They wanted to deliver cutting-edge pop culture from the European fringes, connecting right to the source without mediation, to produce news bulletins which told the truth about what was really going on in their rapidly disintegrating country; and transmit interviews with people whose lives were concealed from the popular consciousness: junkies, AIDS patients, football hooligans escaped convicts, prostitutes and the downtown freaks who drank, took drugs and danced in nightclubs like Akademija. They would reveal to Belgrade another level of existence in all its terrible beauty. (p. 21,22)

At the inception, B92 was neither a public-service broadcaster in the BBC tradition or commercial radio driven by financial imperatives. Instead it was closer to non-profit community radio stations like those clustered around America's Pacifica foundation, a coalition which grew out of left-wing, pacifist currents in California in the forties with a remit to defend human rights and oppose discrimination, or to the ultra-radical socialist/surrealist 'free radio' stations of Italy in the seventies. The most famous of these, Radio Alice, was physically shut down by the police while on air. Its slogan could easily have been that of B92: 'Information is not just the repetition of display

27 of what is going on in reality, but it is a means of transforming reality'. And while B92 was never exactly a pirate, although its official status was unclear for many years to come, its irreverent attitude recalled the daring stunts of Britain's outlaw broadcasters, who for three decades had played intricate cat-and-mouse games with the police to keep their stations on air and transmit music to black inner-city communities which legal operators largely ignored (p.22).

'B92 could never be just a wallpaper soundtrack in your home,' says one Belgrade writer, then a teenage listener living with her parents. 'It was very innovative and, for a radio station, unusually demanding. You had to listen and think, which didn't make it a very easy medium. But it was a pleasure, it was like giving and taking. It sounds like a love relationship, which for many people like me, it was. 'Throughout the news they were mocking the regime guys and making ironic, sarcastic remarks. You weren't supposed to do that in the news, but people liked it because they were relieved to hear someone say something like that so publicly and openly.' (p.23)

While some of the station's staff simply wanted to create an alternative –whatever it might be – to project their own youthful exuberance, to shoot of some sparks, Veran Matic realised immediately that the station had a more serious mission. 'The depiction of genuine reality through professional news programmes came to be seen as subversion,' he explained later. 'True information became provocation, dialogue was labelled a sign of weakness, attempts at conflict resolution and compromise were tagged as cowardice, attempts to represent the interests of minorities were seen as a sign of genetic defects: to be normal meant to be subversive.' (p. 23,24)

This mixture of wilful pranksterism, political satire and left-field music didn't suit everyone. B92 was attacked as chaotic, unlistenable, or elitist. 'It was quite hermetic – they were into themselves,' says one critic. It was in direct conflict with the increasingly inward-looking and nationalistic mood of the country, attracting the chosen few and repulsing many others. 'B92 wasn't a reflection of the times, it was an exception,' says early listener Slobodan Brkic. 'The whole political and social

28 climate in those days, when Milosevic was coming to power, was really conservative. B92 was a conscious reaction to that; it was a window to the outside world, while the dominant trends in Serbia were seclusion, going back to old tribes, old values, a demagogical approach: very clear ideas of good and bad.' (p.26, 27)

It became increasingly difficult to report from the war zones accurately. The phone lines to the other republics were cut off, and journalists had to try other means to get through, like routing their calls via London or Amsterdam. A plea to international media groups for funding for satellite telephones was ignored. But B92 still endeavoured to give as many view-points on events as possible, quoting local sources and Western media reports as well as the state news agency. 'That was very irritating for the regime because they wanted the media to just have one version, the Serbian version: we are the victims, we are defending ourselves, and everyone else is bad,' says Teofil Pancic of the independent magazine Vreme. 'It was very important to make people realise that Serbs are not better or worse than the other people and we can also do bad things. 'B92 was very anarchic – sometimes it sounded like there were three or four punks just hanging around in the studio making jokes, but this was very charming because the environment was so depressing. It was a sort of therapy for the listeners. At that time, what could you see? Your country splitting apart, war starting. A year before, you couldn't have imagined anything like that; war was in the past, ancient history – but now you had military police all around who could send you straight to the frontline. You had less and less money and less and less opportunities to do anything. So the station was a light in the darkness for the people who didn't want to become a part of all that.' (p.54,55)

'What B92 and others did was celebrate life; that's the difference. They tried to remain normal and say that there is the possibility of another kind of life, a totally different society than the one that actually existed here. The only other alternative was Radio Belgrade, which you just couldn't listen to because it was in a timewarp – it sounded like Radio Moscow in 1945.' (p.55)

29 It was obvious that B92 had become much more than a little student radio station playing noisy rock records. It was now the centre of a social movement: anti-war, anti-nationalism; pro-democracy, pro-human rights. It had made links with peace activists, not only in Belgrade but all across disintegrating Yugoslavia. It began to support minority rights, independent trade unions, the women's movements, freedom of speech. It was making films, publishing books of anti-war stories, releasing records by local bands; trying to keep alive the creative spirit of the young, urban Belgrade which had flourished in the eighties, and attempting to stop Serbia being isolated from the rest of Europe, left behind to stagnate into cultural torpor and the state-sponsored cult of death. 'When the borders were closed and war started, if we hadn't had B92 we would have been locked in a kind of prison,' one listener explains. 'We stopped travelling – we stopped living, actually – so the only contact we had with the outside world was through B92. It became cultural phenomenon and it was stronger, unfortunately, than any other political movement here.' (p.56)

Dzigurski, Dragana. (1988). Editorial Policy of Informative-Political Programme of TV Novi Sad in Conditions of Sector Organization. Novi Sad: Centre for Programme and Audience Research.

New organization of work in informative-political programme in terms of sector organization on TV Novi Sad should more efficiently accomplish its informative- political missions. New organization also brought more successful realization of editorial policy and development of informative-political programme on TV Novi Sad, although significant efforts will still have to be put in this mission, the author of this publication writes. According to the survey made among employees on TV Novi Sad, 90,6 per cent of journalists stated that they regularly attended redaction meetings and that they were informed enough about the most important events and issues in their redactions. They were also convinced that new organization of work brought new quality in their redactions as it stimulated journalist’s independence in making different TV news and shows, through better cooperation and coordination of the work, of course. Majority

30 of journalists was also convinced that they influenced enough on editorial policy of the media and that they were informed enough about the most important issues of media’s editorial policy. On the other hand, the interviewees expressed a huge amount of criticism on their self-contribution regarding sector’s organization functioning as their contribution was small or non-existent. However, many journalists were convinced that cooperation between different redactions has improved in new working conditions. Majority of interviewed journalist also estimated that new organization of work in TV Novi Sad brought better informing on issues and topics in Vojvodina, although this contribution was in their opinion quite low. Sector organization of work in TV Novi Sad also brought small contribution to the amount of information on Yugoslav territory. However, when it comes to better cooperation between different redactions and bringing reality and values of national cultures into the programme, the sector organization of TV Novi Sad turned out as a very successful. Majority of journalists also used an opportunity to express their points of views regarding better realization of editorial policy to their editors.

Kazimir Curgus, Velimir. (2001). Serbian Media after October 5th. Belgrade: Media Center.

What has actually changed in Serbia and Yugoslavia since October 5th, 2000? Quite a lot or almost nothing? Instead of a complex analysis of economic, social and political circumstances suffice it to take a look at what the media have gone through, the kind of changes completed in the information sphere, the situation with the freedom of expression, the status of the journalist profession? Each of these questions demands a precise answer.

The most important thing is that the situation did change to the effect that the media in Serbia today have by far more freedom and independence in both professional and political terms. The freedom of expression is no longer brutally and overtly endangered as was the case during the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. Still, the situation is not nearly ideal. New forms of pressure are coming up – primarily

31 deriving from the legal status inherited by the media and the information sphere in general. The new information law has not been adopted yet to govern the key issues related to the free access to information, the protection of information sources, the right to denial and the role of the media as public services. The Broadcasting Act, adopted in July 2002 will have to pass the exam of the profession and justice. A large number of electronic media (about 1000 radio and TV stations), especially of local and regional nature, will yet have to resolve their status.

The media situation is additionally complicated by the monopoly of commercial TV stations (TV Pink and TV BK) created and developed in the Milosevic era, which still have the status on national TVs. Their monopoly, established in consequence of huge privileges granted them by the former regime, has been reinforced rather than challenged by the new authorities. On the other hand, RTV B92 – the most consistent opponent to the former regime among the electronic media – has not yet managed to obtain a national frequency and a national TV channel. The RTV B92 is also the linchpin of the powerful network of independent local electronic media – ANEM, which, too, is placed in a highly unfavourable position by the postponed regulation of its status.

Naturally, this is all about winning the market, especially where electronic media are concerned. The fact that at this point of time TV Pink controls over sixty per cent of funds intended for advertising is sufficiently revealing. At the same time, the cumbersome state radio and TV house with over 7000 employees has to be transformed and rearranged into an efficient, professional and objective public service. This requires large investments not only in technical facilities but also in the education of journalists, editors and technical staff.

Education and advanced media training are the priorities for both electronic and print media. Namely, the print media are facing still greater problems than their broadcast counterparts. General impoverishment of the population has affected the circulation of the papers and a drastic drop of the standards of media employees. The issues of ownership and privatization of the largest print media in Serbia therefore have both

32 economic and professional implications. The entry of German WAZ media concern (Westwalische Algemeine Zeitung) into the Serbian print media market marks the turning point for the future of the press.

The Independent Journalists Association of Serbia and the Media Centre have from the very beginning not only defended the freedom of speech and professional values but also actively participated in the drafting of the new media legislation and acted as a strong lobby for their prompt adoption. Cooperation with the Council of Europe and the OSCE experts was extremely successful. However, in the case of the new Information Act the representatives of the new authorities failed to demonstrate the required political will to adopt this specific piece of legislation.

Journalists are no longer endangered by politicians but are still threatened by the criminal groups and corrupt local power holders. Thus, e.g. a reporter for Vecernje Novosti, Milan Pantic was killed in 2001, after he had started writing about crime and corruption in his local environment. His murderer and the person who ordered the assassination have not been identified yet. Furthermore, the case of another journalist killed in Milosevic times, Slavko Curuvija (owner and editor of the weekly ) still remains unsolved. These cases additionally hamper the normalization of relations and establishment of trust between the media and the new government.

On the other hand, there is no doubt that most media strongly support the democratization, reforms and modernization of the country. Attitudes towards the past, the Hague Tribunal and crimes committed under Milosevic, are also important for the normalization and democratization of Serbia and Yugoslavia. Facing the past has thus become the topic the media no longer shrink from tackling. The candour of various contributions and texts addressing these topics certainly add to the truth and reconciliation process in the whole region. Naturally, the largest contribution in this respect is that of independent media such as RTV B92, daily Danas and weeklies Vreme and Reporter. They are still exposed to attacks of radical nationalists and

33 neofascists, but the public opinion is, globally speaking, far more open and ready to face the truth now than it was a few years ago.

There is no doubt that the media in Serbia shall retain a crucial role in establishing the values of civil society, tolerance and openness. All who care for democratization, stability and peace in the region will have to take this fact seriously into account. Thus the support for these media has strategic importance for the developed world, and in particular the European Union.

Independent Syndicates of Belgrade Radio Television & MM Centre. (1993). Purges in Belgrade Radio-Television. Belgrade: MM Centre.

Brief Chronology of January 1993 purges: - In June 1992 talk started in Belgrade Radio – Television about the compilation of 'lists for the discharge of the unfit' - on 21 December 1992, one day after the elections, the rumour spread about the final lists for 'forced holidays', creating an unprecedented atmosphere of uncertainty and fear among the employed. Many were threatened by their superiors that they could easily find themselves on these lists. There was no official information of any kind. Harassment and intimidation never stopped, and some were physically assaulted.

Who received the main blow? The only 'criterion' for forced holidays was the membership in one of the following 'risk groups' at which the purge was directed: 1. Politically unfit journalists 2. Members of the Executive Board of the Independent Union 3. Journalists on Seselj's 'elimination list' 4. Members of the Strike Committee 5. Individuals voicing their criticism in public

34 6. Individuals resisting the autocracy of their bosses

Unfit Programmes. Unquestionable and a more or less complete purge of the 'disobedient' took place in Belgrade Television and Belgrade Radio Channel 1. By and large, it affected the journalists working for desks dealing with daily news and political subjects. With the best-rating programmes already changed beyond recognition, the disobedient journalists were systematically replaced. Whole teams or the most prominent programme editors and hosts who had acquired over the years the greatest prestige among the democratic public for their openness and critical attitude, were removed.

Prohibition of the First Independent Union in Serbia. The January 'broom' swept also the Independent Union. During the past three years it was the only BRTV union fighting for free and objective coverage and the professional right of the employed. Almost the whole Executive Board: 14 out of 17 members, including Chairman Lazar Lalic and its founder, writer Filip David, were sent on forced holidays. Since they are banished from the buildings of the Serbian RTV, the Union's normal activity and work within the organisation have been effectively stopped.

Seselj's Elimination List. The lists for 'forced holidays' included almost all those from Seselj's 'elimination list' announced in the prime-time TV News during the strike of Belgrade Radio Channel 2 in April 1992. This was one of the most explicit examples of the public promotion of the political and ethnic discrimination of the BRTV journalists.

Strike Committee Discharged. All members of the Strike Committee of the failed general strike at BRTV in April 1992 have been evicted.

Public Appearance as a Criterion of Disobedience. Another criterion for 'holidays of unlimited duration' was public defence of the profession or membership in independent press fora. Members of democratic opposition parties, opposition MPs

35 from BRTV, members of professional associations and cultural institutions speaking out about major political and social issues have nag been spared either.

Autocracy of Bosses as a Criterion of Disobedience. The forced holidays list includes also many people unknown to the public at large, who – either at work or within the Independent Union – defended their profession and resisted various forms of autocracy and lawlessness. The unlimited Powers and autocracy of the Management made it possible to use as a criterion of 'successful work' personal sympathy, or lack of it, for defenceless individuals.

What's it all about?

The purge of journalists is part of the process intended to establish an absolute control, in particular over the prime-time radio and television news programmes and critically intoned magazines. A populist concept is simultaneously imposed on cultural and musical programmes. The first steps towards a greater openness of some RTV programmes are replaced by the blatant propaganda on the ruling party. The new editorial concept is largely bent on creating an image of the world conspiring against Serbia and settling the accounts with those who uphold different political views.

The process involved the abolition of the best programmes, dismantling of entire desks, silencing of magazines and talk-shows. Unfit professionals are replaced by obedient beginners and politicised dabblers, party propagandists, members and supporters of the Socialist Party of Serbia and the Serbian Radical Party, and a large number of refugees. Generously rewarded, they have all turned commentators, editors and programme hosts overnight.

The Socialist Party of Serbia, preparing for a long-term reign has thus taken over completely the main lever of its power.

36 Kesetovic, Zelimir. (1998). Censorship in Serbia. Belgrade: ZaduZbina Andrejevic.

The monograph Censorship in Serbia by Zelimir Kesetovic focuses on the censorship which, as an instrument of cultural policy, was practiced in the Republic of Serbia during the socialist era in the 1945-1990 periods. The monograph focuses on censorship practiced in the field of publishing. The third part of the monograph (the first one deals with the theoretical model of censorship, while the second one is focused on a general survey of censorship in Serbia) is entitled The Censorship in Publishing Practice in Serbia and it deals with the development of publishing, its legal and statutory position and its specific features. The survey is followed by an analysis of censorship in publishing in the 1945-1990 periods.

The development of publishing is described in terms of its principal categories (the number of publications and their circulation) as well as in terms of the main characteristics connected to its social and economic position, as well as its position in general. The most important problems facing it have also been pointed out.

The statutory position of publishing has been analysed through the main statutory provisions contained in the law on publishing, law on the press and other relevant regulations, as well as their changes and additions within the specific period. The author takes into consideration only those stipulations which had or could have had effects in terms of censorship (restrictions in the number of subjects who are allowed to practice publishing, provisions regarding political fitness of the founders of publishing houses, their directors, editors the institute of reviewing etc.), after which he concludes that, beside general economic and political features of the system itself, the relevant legislative provision have also had restrictive effect, in the sense that it limited publishing.

Considering specific features of censorship in publishing, the author states that there was no formal censorship of publications, but that the printing houses not only sent the first copies of publications to prosecutors (which was their legal obligation) but

37 also withheld the distribution until the decision of the prosecution, which actually presented preventive censorship. Besides, the cases of political disqualification of authors, editors, directors of publishing houses, etc. have been given significant attention, as well as 'the artistic reconstruction' of works prior to their release into the communication channels, as a specific form of censorship with the author's consent.

The last part analyses the censoring of publications in Serbia following World War Two until 1990, on the empirical samples collected by Marko Lopusina, a Yugoslav journalist, in his work The Black Book – Censorship in Yugoslavia 1945-1990. Prohibited publications are analysed in great detail in terms of years of publishing, kinds or genres to which they belong and the reasons for their prohibition. Special attention has been given to the unacceptable topics and authors, the terminology used in campaigns lead against them, as well as to specific traits of the operating mechanism of censorship in publishing. The author states that the effects of censorship in publishing are difficult to estimate but that it certainly has affected the entire cultural output and spiritual climate by prohibiting valuable and significant works of art, as a valuable part of cultural heritage, as well as by limiting creative achievements of vast numbers of gifted scientists and artists.

Kesetovic is aware of numerous difficulties and limitations hinder all attempts at deeper analyses and generalisations regarding the practice of censorship in Serbia in the conditions of transition, such as comparatively short period of multy-party political life, the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, a war in the neighbourhood, political zeal and a low level of political culture, as well as the isolation of the country. However, he tries to point out some of the most prominent changes brought about in the field of censorship by abandoning of the one-party system and the party-state model.

The closing considerations contain a statement that, although there was no formal legal censorship in the Republic of Serbia in the course of the specific period (1945- 1990), there was a comprehensive ideological control in the sphere of culture and in

38 the field of publishing in particular. The censorship (political and self-managing, i.e. unofficial) was present, mainly, in its preventive form, and through auto-censorship, and only rarely in its repressive form, performed by administrative measures (involving judiciary and the police). Legislative, social and political position of publishing, as well as the distribution of political power among the state and para- state institutions, created favourable grounds for political and economic pressures which equalled to highly efficient censorship. However, the censorship criteria (primarily political ones) were neither constant nor as rigid as in other socialist countries, and there were some more liberal periods of social development, which were more encouraging for the development of arts and creativeness, although these were invariably followed by bouts of intensified repression and restriction. The limits of freedom, sometimes broader, sometimes narrower, have always existed and have objectively influenced the development of publishing.

Matic, Jovanka. (2002). Media and Elections. Belgrade: Centre for Free Elections and Democracy.

This monograph does not directly address editorial policy of Serbian media, although it raises important question on the role of Serbian media in the elections. According to the author, in the 1990’s the media represented parliamentary elections in Serbia as a free and a fair one, but not even in a one case – in this is a kind of Serbian record among all post-communist societies – a fair and independent treating of political actors running in the elections was achieved. Such unfairness especially characterized state media, which were by the law obliged to establish equal possibilities for everybody running in the elections. Since the first pluralistic parliamentary elections in 1990, media presentations of elections did not satisfy the needs of the audience, as it mainly satisfied the needs of the leading political party and its coalition. Media functioning in 1990’s did not reach its optimal role in electoral processes, the author also writes. Matic also provides some interesting explanations in order to understand the normative role of Serbian media and their functioning.

39 Media Centre. (2004). Ownership of Media and its Impact on Independence and Pluralism of Serbian Media. Belgrade: Media Centre.

This publication is based on a larger international survey organized by South East European Network for Professionalisation of the Media. It deals with different topics regarding regulation mechanisms, privatization, ownership, pluralism and independence of Serbian media. Among the most important conclusions of this survey, the authors point out that the media owners took over the leading role in maintaining freedom of media, especially in the relation between politics and media. However, the interviewees confirmed that the owners of the media always have the last word in a sense that their instructions to the editors have a priority under professional journalistic norms. This is why one of the crucial questions of professional journalism is whether its professional codex should also be adopted by the media owners.

To date, no collectively arrangements between journalistic associations and media publishers were made. Publishers significantly influence on editorial policies of media: they use the media for giving support to certain political and business groups and individuals. Hidden propaganda and paid texts are not rare in Serbian media. This is also one of the main reasons why investigative journalism is not favoured and a search for the truth is not supported. Recently, there have been some attempts to promote investigative journalism, but those were just alone enthusiastic cases not really connected with professionalism. On the other hand it is important to note that when Serbian media find out the truth, someone’s interest becomes endangered and this someone is usually an individual or a group who was hiding the truth. This is why editors and owners of the media do not really favour investigative journalism for the truth itself.

40 Pasic, Prvoslav; Radojkovic, Miroljub & Veljanovski, Rade. (1993). Toward Democratic Broadcasting. Belgrade: Soros Yugoslavia Foundation

The experiences of all Eastern European societies in the process of transition from communism to post-communism point to continuity in the strivings of their political regimes to preserve the authoritarian model of control over the public and public opinion, but at the same time increased resistance to these tendencies on the part of the public sphere and the cultural subsystem. When we talk about media, then, 'transition' is manifested as a tendency toward 'transposition', that is, the reproduction of the same matrix of government, but in a new guise. This is the result of persistent application of the media philosophy of authoritarian 'social engineering', as defined in Lenin's work What Is To Be Done. In this philosophy, media are given an extremely important role: they are considered to be 'scaffolds' around a building in reconstruction, marking the contours of the new construction and making it possible for the 'builders' to communicate among themselves and follow the progress of their joint efforts. For the inhabitants of the 'building' these scaffolds constitute a screen for projecting the image of the current state of the 'building' at the moment considered desirable by the 'engineers of human souls'. This picture, in turn, ensures not only agreement among the inhabitants that 'work is progressing', but also their 'unanimity' in that respect; the task of media is to ensure this unanimity. The fact that with the beginning of the process of transition the 'design' of the construction changes, does not matter too much; each new 'new' social project bases its success, above all, on mastering human souls, that is, on implanting therein the currently operative ideology. Thus, in changed circumstances, too, media are predominantly counted upon as a means for this kind of implanting. Madison rightly remarked in The Federalist Papers that every government is based on efficient control of opinion and that its stability rests on successful domination over that opinion. Therefore the struggle for the subordination of media is at the core of all 'post-communist' political struggles and the media become the central subject/object of transition.

All these specific features of the 'transpositional' situation are reflected in their purest form in 'post-Yugoslav' so-called nation states.

41

The dynamics of crisis in the eighties, as the background for the subsequent tragic solution to the Yugoslav 'riddle', was essentially marked with 'media wars'. They have had several stages, among which four are the most important:

1. The war against the media, that is, concentrated efforts of late-communist regime to bridle tendencies towards the autonomy of the public sphere as an essential presupposition for a mature 'civil society' independent of state. At this stage, the efforts of some journalists, and even whole staffs, to break the bonds of control and reject 'self-management' information strategies imposed from above met with bitter resistance from the regime, which rightly perceived in this tendency the threat of losing its grip.

2. The second stage was the war for the media, especially on the eve of the 'Eight Session Coup' in Serbia, ending in takeover of the most important means of mass communication (television and prestigious newspapers above all).

3. The third stage was the preparation of the media for war, which was imminent. It was characterized by the saturation of the media production by the 'Balkan syndrome' – the historicization of politics and politicization of history. The assertion that media preparation directly preceded and hastened the later 'exchange of information' through cannons is not an exaggeration.

4. Long-range weapons were first tried in the fourth stage – the media war, characterized by hyper-production of national mythology inciting ethnic prejudice and stereotypes, and passionate preaching of inter ethnic intolerance and hatred. As we have already said, the public information subsystem in Serbia during the last decade has been the field of action of opposite tendencies: on the one hand, toward the liberation of the media and the public sphere from heteronymous influence and control, and, on the other, persistent attempts to break the resistance to the reduction of the social function of the media and public opinion by combined methods of repression and techniques of para-legal and extra-legal pressure. These

42 increase parallel with the (more or less unwilling and forced) introduction of party pluralism into Serbian political life. This introduced, among other things, the next stage the media wars.

5. That is the war for influence the media between the ruling party and the opposition. Its peak on March 9, 1991, and partial concessions by the regime to the demands of the opposition, created a pool of destructive social energy, dangerous for the regime and threatening its survival. This energy was thus directed outwards the outside and channelled into the war that started among the Yugoslav peoples. The war postponed conflicts over the media only temporarily, but it offered the regime a necessary pause to conceive a new model of the instrumentalization of the media. On the one hand, the environment of conflict and war naturally favours the tendency towards uniformization and unification of the media; in other words, it hampers tendencies towards pluralization, autonomy and the establishment of media responsibility to the public and society. On the other hand, this environment creates space for a new type of 'journalist' involvement, relieving the majority of journalists of their personal responsibility for speaking in public – the responsibility they had never fully accepted anyway – since this responsibility is now transferred to the 'higher interest', the realization of which justifies any means. War journalism has generated numerous war 'reporters' who faithfully trot by the side of the 'dogs of war' and 'liberate' with them. Higher interests of the community gradually mingle into an ad hoc community of interests. Special reporters 'from the spot' multiply in the same proportion as the 'spots' themselves are effaced. The mutually exclusive pair of processes – subordination and liberation – turns into a paradoxical connection – the subordination of 'liberation'. The liberation of cities of people and things goes hand in hand with the 'liberation' of journalism of professional ethics.

Since the fall of 1987, the media in Serbia have displayed two simultaneous but opposite tendencies of development: inside the Republic, there has been pluralization of media discourse, liberty to select topics, make commentaries or invite guests was won. This tendency reached its peak in the second half of the year 1989, that is, when media were being enclosed within their ethno-political borders and exposed to

43 the strategies of the media war, immediately after the 1990 pluralist elections. After that the repression over media (and within them) grew more intense with the beginning of the war in former Yugoslavia, reaching its peak between middle of 1992 and extraordinary parliamentary and presidential elections, and since the elections.

To throw light on the contradictions between these two processes, as well as encourage creative and democratic initiatives for the autonomy of the media, is the global object of this book. Its goal is to define models of repression over the media and its consequences, and to find out strategies of liberation, articulating the need and possibilities for changing the status of the media and conditions they operate in the broader societal environment. The starting orientation in liberation strategies is the right of citizens to objective and non-partisan information, pluralism of sources of information, open communications, and persistent efforts to establish a partnership between professional associations and unions of media workers on the one hand, and owners/managers of media, regardless of property structure, on the other.

Todorovic, Mirjana & Gredelj, Stjepan. (2001). Media in Serbia – Free and Freed. Belgrade: Centre for Free Elections and Democracy.

This monograph focuses its attention on the period between September and December 2000, and the role of media in the electoral campaigns in this period. It consists of three parts: functioning of media in pre-election campaign in September 2000, Serbian media between October and December 2000, and functioning of media in pre-election campaign in December 2000. The authors of the study conducted very detailed observation and reporting of the press (Politika, Vecernje novosti, Blic, Danas) and electronic media (Radio Belgrade – The News of the Day, RTS – TV News 2, Studio B – News at 7 p.m.), but also provided some basic characteristics of the most important political events in this period. Although the monograph does not specifically address the question of editorial policies in selected media, it provides a very good illustration how media functioned in this period. There is a very clear distinction made between regime and independent media and their mission and functioning. On the one hand there were media, such as Politika and

44 RTS, which were undoubtedly regime media promoting pro-regime propaganda and therefore neglecting the original mission and professional role of the journalism. On the other hand, there were Radio-TV Novi Sad, TV Studio B, Ekpres Politika and Vecernje novosti opposing such matrix and practising different, more objective and professional journalism.

2. PhD DISSERTATIONS

Lukac, Sergije. ( ). Development of Press in Socialist Republic of Serbia between 1945 and 1980. Belgrade: Faculty for Political Sciences.

This PHD is one of the crucial works for the understanding how the role of the media and especially the press was understood in the past. The author writes about the development of Serbian press in the period between 1945 and 1980 presenting the most characteristics of the press in the periods 1918-1941, 1941-1945, 1945-1960 and 1960-1980. Although this PHD dissertation does not specifically addresses the role of editorial policies of the Serbian press, it nicely explains what was the function of mass informing in former Yugoslavia, what was the role of politics in Yugoslav public informing and what was a position of journalists regarded as social-political workers. As Lukac emphasizes, journalistic redactions mainly served to the owners of the media, in this case to different state organs.

3. ARTICLES

One of the most fruitful sources regarding editorial policy of Serbian media was found in a list of publications published by The Independent Journalist's Association of Serbia. In 2000, the Association published several issues named File on Repression on chronology of events in Serbia, but the files also contain examples of journalist's resistance towards the violence and repression of the right to free information. In

45 2001, after the fall of Milosevic's political regime, the association published several files named Dossier, mainly concerned with transitional period and ethics in Serbian journalism. In 2004 and in the first half of 2005, three additional publications called Dossier on Media were published emphasizing that regrettably, present situation of Serbian journalism still faces problems typical of the Milosevic era.

1. FILE ON REPRESSION (n.1, January-February 2000) edited by Dzura Vojnovic

-page 61-70: Dragisa Stankovic: Manipulation and Falsified Information

The article focuses on prime-time TV news, more precisely on Second TV News on Television Belgrade at 19.30. Drawing from TV News held in January and February 2000, it can be concluded that Television Belgrade could hardly be regarded as an information media or a media serving to the public interest. The author of this article is convinced that Television Belgrade is a television of current political regime and most influential political parties. This fact also results in its editorial policy and a concept of TV shows and TV News. Television Belgrade is, in other words, a propaganda service and a transmission of current political regime and of SPS, SRS and JUL political parties. According to Stankovic, editors and journalist of Television Belgrade have adopted ideology of governing political parties and behave as their advocates. This is very much seen in selection and interpretation of texts and editions, as much as in falsified information. Therefore the media manipulation is in the essence of editorial policy of TV Belgrade, preventing from any kind of criticism of current political regime and President Slobodan Milosevic. Reality is ignored, but, on the other hand, fear, nationalistic and political hate, verbal terror, threats and assaults toward independent media are favoured. Any kind of different thinking and a right to the answer, which are a base for responsible journalism, are completely unknown to editorial policy of information programme on TV Belgrade, the author concludes.

46

-page 76-79: Biserka Matic: Costly Loyalty to the Regime

Politika, the oldest publishing house of the Balkans, is a regime paper and no specially analyze has to be done in order to see this fact, the author of this article writes. According to Matic, this fact has been seen since 1987 and editorial policy of this paper, supporting Slobodan Milosevic, has not changed ever since. This is why Politika, together with Tanjug, RTV Serbia, Ekspres and Borba presents to strongest media support to the Slobodan Milosevic's political regime.

-page 81-83: Ivan Torov: Pilgrim's Progress – A Professional and Political Journey through Serbian journalism

Media in Serbia have become the most important and powerful means of governing political elite, and all those independent media (Borba, Studio B and in the beginning of 1990's also Vreme) opposing the regime, have become a target of many pressures. Borba, having the most homogeneous journalistic redaction until 1994, was fighting hard against such pressures, but the regime killed it with its force.

2. FILE ON REPRESSION (n.2, March/April 2000) edited by Dzura Vojnovic

-page 25-26: Natasa Bogovic: Pressure on the Printed Media. Price Controls for Newspapers and Paper Shortage

In March and April the printed media were hit by a newsprint paper shortage, as a result of the production stoppage at the Matroz paper mill. Also, the government did not allow the independent dailies Blic and Glas to increase the prices of their issue copies, despite a three-fold increase in printing costs, so that the dailies were losing almost half a dinar per copy.

47

-page 59-62: Nebojsa Bugarinovic: Radio Belgrade 'News of the Day'. In the Service of Propaganda

The attempt to analyse the daily information programme broadcast by Radio Belgrade – a less influential, though still a very important segment of Radio and Television of Serbia – is associated with the hazard of the application of the usual professional standards, as a measure of that which is broadcast by this media establishment, being inappropriate. For, the chief purpose of this radio station is plain propaganda of the political opinion it is dependent on. Since their chief motive does evidently not relate to timely and true information, but propaganda in favour of the ruling coalition, the best known among the people remaining after the many purges carried out in this establishment's information editorial office were put in the foreground. The state radio information programme mostly focuses on the commentary of various events and occurrences, while the basic information about them is showed aside, vague or completely omitted. The News of the Day is anchored mostly by Miladin Manojlovic, the last first-class announcer and director remaining in the programme, whose voice gives an official and serious tone to the rather empty and dragged out broadcasts. In his absence, he is replaced by the former sports and entertainment programme anchormen, Svetislav Vukoic and Slobodan Kovacevic, whose voices are also well-known to listeners.

-page 63-68: Biserka Matic: How 'Politika' manipulates. Forced Optimism and Hushing Up Take Turns

In March and April, just like in the preceding months and years, Politika remained faithful to the editorial concept characterizing all pro-government media to which the fixing up of reality and the avoidance of truth are a profession. In order to 'produce' and promote optimism with all their strength, thanks to alleged victories, reconstruction, reforms and development, they sacrificed the profession and truth of their own free will. Whatever does not exist in daily life can be found in large quantities in this newspaper – for only five dinars. The lucky ones, who have the SPS

48 membership cards and are faithful to Politika, are still better off: they feed on optimism for nothing. Thanks to a free distribution of the newspaper, the oldest newspaper publishing house in the Balkans has not yet remained without its readers. The long-time general manager of this newspaper and its eternal acting chief and responsible editor, Hadzi Dragan Antic, would not have remained behind the wheel for such a long time had he not adhered blindly to the formula applicable to all pro- government media. As the life in Serbia is becoming increasingly more difficult, the links between the members of the diminishing federation are weakening and public pressure for the scheduling of elections and a democratic change of government is increasing, the achievements of the regime are being increasingly emphasized, the Montenegrin government is being increasingly attacked for the destruction of the federal state, while the opposition and independent media are being condemned as fifth columnists and traitors in an increasingly more aggressive manner. In Politika, the red Borba, Ekspres and Vecernje novosti, the life is persistently described as if seen in a distorted mirror. They write only that which is to the benefit of the ruling trio, while at the same time hushing up everything that might condemn it for failure, misfortune and increasing poverty, the author concludes.

3. FILE ON REPRESSION (n.3, May 2000) edited by Dzura Vojnovic

-page 25-27: Izabela Kisic: Policemen in the Corridors, Silence on the Air

As of May 26 the program of the Belgrade – based Radio Index can not be heard in the central city parts because of 'unknown signal' are being broadcast on the same frequency. This radio station was attacked early in the morning of May 17, when the police invaded the Beogradjanka building, where the premises of the said radio station are located, and temporarily interrupted the information program by preventing the journalists from reaching their offices. Although the brief news broadcasts restarted on an hourly basis at 1 p.m. on May 19, the editorial staff did not manage to bring back on the air all the information programs operating prior to

49 the police invasion. Aleksandar Vasic, Radio Index Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief, said that all the programs should be restored in the first week of July. The police left the premises of Radio Index in the evening of May 18, but remained on the floor shared Radio Index shares with Radio B2-92. In order to reach their studio, Radio Index journalists must pass through the corridor where the policemen, who 'keep an eye on Radio B2-92', hang around.

-page 28-31: Izabela Kisic: Blows dealt to Blic, Glas javnosti and Danas

Blic, the independent daily newspaper with the highest circulation here, was coerced in the latter weeks of May 2000 into reducing its circulation of 200.000 daily copies by half, doing without its regular colour pages and with the format slightly altered. The chief cause of these reductive moves lied in the state-owned Borba printing- works refusing to press Blic in what looked to be the hardest adverse move that the newspapers and its editors had ever faced up to. Further still, the ensuing period saw Blic undergoing a series of assaults in a similar vein, one of the toughest being the Forum printing-house breaking up with the newspaper who switched to it over a short-term on leaving the Borba. Another occasion that put the Blic's survival at stake was provided by the Belgrade police forcing their way into its editorial headquarters, based in the Beogradjanka, the 23-storey business facility downtown. Irrespective of some of the dailies, as Danas and Glas Javnosti, being in principle wiling to comply with and pay the newsprint price as set by the home manufactures and sellers or even import the raw material from abroad, mid-May saw the non-state papers plagued continually by a newsprint shortage which was at its fiercest towards the month's end. Also in May, the Glas Javnosti daily was ordered by Belgrade Business Court to leave and empty its official premises in the number 8 Vlajkoviceva Street, at an eight-day notice.

-page 62-70: Biserka Matic: Daily Politika's Manipulations

The true proportions of the evil and madness, under whose trademark we have been living for far too long here cannot be grasped unless one reads the pro-regime press

50 on a fairly regular basis. It is impossible to understand how far the regime has gone in its lies and deceptions and how much more it is able to manipulate and deceive, without following what Politika writes, the author of this article says. In her words, the oldest newspaper in the Balkans has stripped itself of the role of a witness of the times and has become a paradigm of the moral decay and downfall of the journalistic profession. It is, at the same time, a stark proof that the Serbian society is seriously sick, and that the truth in Serbia is in mortal danger, just as are its citizens. Until now, one could say that the state-run media resorted to manipulation, that they lost balance and have gone too far in zealously serving the regime. After everything that happened in May 2000, it is very difficult to find words that would even remotely describe what is, actually, being done by Politika, the 'red' Borba, Vecernje Novosti, and the Novi Sad . On the pages of Politika, this chronicler has found too much evidence of its direct involvement in violence and repression. It does not follow events, as it used to do for decades, it itself takes part in them, provokes, creates and heralds them. Due to its greatly over-passionate attitude, increasingly foul language and penetration of primitivism, it sometimes seems as if H.D.A. (Hadzi Dragan Antic) and his most obedient journalists are taking direct part in the arrests and persecutions, as if they are holding the truncheon of the policemen beating up Otpor members, students and rebellious citizens, or as if they are guiding the police as to whom to strike and whom to miss, author says.

4. FILE ON REPRESSION (n.4, June-July 2000) edited by Dzura Vojnovic

-page 101-108: Biserka Matic: Everything for the Regime and Not Even a Word Against It

The author of this article focuses her attention on how daily Politika manipulates. In June and July of 2000 Politika and other regime media were full of news regarding Yugoslavian president and his role of a national hero, a law against terrorism,

51 peacekeeping role of Yugoslavian Army and so on. One again, it became obvious that Politika is the greatest ideological supporter of current political regime, the author of this article emphasizes. The only news regarding this newspaper is that everybody having SPS member card can get this newspaper for free. Similar goes for the patients in hospitals.

-page 109-112: Branka Opranovic: Fighting against the World and Internal Enemies

Editorial policy of Dnevnik, the only daily in Vojvodina in , has not changed for ten years and is very loyal to one main principle: if something is bad in a country, a newspaper has to present a better picture of reality to its readers, but it also has to remind readers on long-term Serbian enemies insisting on theories of international conspiracy and it has to stimulate people to hate each other… According to the author of this article, numerous articles of Dnevnik show that the guiding light of its editorial policy is to serve the regime. This mission is much more important than the main principles of journalistic profession and the mission to inform public objectively. Readers of Dnevnik are, on the other hand, very devoted to the newspaper, especially because of its information on sport and local environment, TV editions and advertisements, but also because of the newspaper price, only 6 dinars for piece. But the other things in this newspaper, such as influencing readers character, political and other points of view, are a subject of the worst kind of manipulation, the author concludes.

5. FILE ON REPRESSION (n.5, August-September 2000) edited by Dzura Vojnovic

-page 46-50: Aleksandar Andric: 'Regime against Independent Press'

52 Although campaign of penalties subsided in August and September, it could not be said that Slobodan Milosevic's regime 'had forgotten' about non-regime media. On the contrary. It seems that the pressures had reached the top just in that period. The Regime's attention was specially drawn by the editorial staff of the three independent daily newspapers – Blic, Glas javnosti and Danas. These newspapers represented main source of information to the great number of Belgrade citizens. Just as a reminder our metropolis was deprived of the independent television (Studio B), and the work of independent radio stations was limited – due to the constant jamming, even the people from the centre of Belgrade could not hear Radio Index and B2-92. Fight of the regime with daily newspapers was conducted in two ways: psychological propaganda (libelling, threats, accusations) and economic (artificial shortage of newsprint, more exactly prevention from the purchase of paper), the second one seemed more effective in smothering of independent daily newspapers.

-page 51-54: Slobodan Djoric: Regime's Repression and Agression

The former president of FRY Slobodan Milosevic personally defined criteria upon which one should differ 'mercenary' from 'patriotic' media in this election year. 'A great number of electronic media and press', said Milosevic in the New Year interview to the Politika daily, 'are under complete financial and political control of some Western governments' and 'they have a task to urge destabilization of Yugoslavia'. This 'subversive activity' against 'people and the state' was prevented by 'patriotic' bodies of the SPS (Socialist Party of Serbia), the JUL (Yugoslav Left) and the SRS (Serbian Radical Party), especially Goran Matic and Ivan Markovic, federal ministers for information and telecommunications. The regime's controlled electronic media received a distasteful task of turning every defeat and catastrophe into victories of the regime and Slobodan Milosevic personally. From the beginning of 2000 till September 24, in the arrangement of the SPS-JUL total number of 21 television stations and 9 radio stations were established, and in September and August, alone, 8 televisions and 5 radio stations. This election year did not record an opening of any municipal or private television without left

53 coalition being engaged in it. 5 of non-regime radio and television stations were closed, the signals of about 10 electronic media were obstructed in different ways, and several tens of other radio and television stations were submitted under various sorts of pressure.

-page 99-101: Zlatoje Martinov: Parties' Weighting in RTS Evening News Coverage

The author reports on survey focusing on the top news programme of RTS and parties' weighting in it in a period prior to elections. Survey's object and goal were:

1. The survey of individual political parties weighting in the news programmes on Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) aimed to determine specifically the quantity of reporting time the state media allotted to separate parties. 2. The top news programme of RTS, the Evening News, was held by this author to supply a representative sample for this television's information broadcasts on the whole. 3. The period examined was September 1-21, as the electioneering was at its undisputed height. 4. Considered were all kinds of reports, the ones in direct reference to the parties' pre-election promotional efforts and ones ostensibly unrelated to the ballot but in effect pursuing the interests of the ruling parties SPS and JUL alike. 5. The findings given here are of quantitative nature as they strictly refer to the survey's numerical side.

The author summarized the finding as follows: in the survey period, the Evening News on the average ran for 69 minutes 21 second. The most extensive ones, of about 101 minutes, came at the close of the pre-election campaign on September 19-20, while the briefest one was on September 9, and lasted 'mere' 49 minutes, to end. The total running time of the examined period of the Evening News is 1,445 minutes of which the time devoted to the election issues accounted for 693 or

54 47.96 percent of the entire time considered and the remainder of topics prompted 752 minutes of news, or 52.04 percent. The author also stresses that of the entire time on the elections (693 minutes), Socialist Party of Serbia took up 603 minutes or 87,01 percent, Serbian Radical Party 36 minutes 45 second or 5,26 percent, Serbian Renewal Movement was allocated by RTS editors 18 minutes 30 second for electioneering or 2,66 percent and Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) 34 minutes 45 second or 4,98 percent of the available time for pre-ballot promotion for the viewers to acknowledge. Considering nothing more than the time in minute and putting aside the disposition of the reports, we may freely draw the conclusion that RTS led a party-biased campaign, putting to the fore as unquestionable favourites the ruling parties SPS-JUL and the then current head of state Slobodan Milosevic, while the entire opposition, most notably. Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), it treated not only downright negatively but also sought to disqualify. Thereby, RTS turned itself into a plain party-led service of SPS and JUL. That this attitude of the state TV towards the oppositional political parties obviously had the effect of boomerang, the poll in effect verified at the voting-box on September 24, author concludes.

6. DOSSIER (n.6, October-November 2000) edited by Dzura Vojnovic

-page 36-39: Igor Jovanovic: More Employed, Less Professionals

According to the author of this article, Studio B was of the most significant symbols of oppositional fight in Serbia in a period 1990-2000 and a true parameter of a level of freedom in Serbian society. When this media house could maintain independent editorial policy, the intensity of repression in Serbia was at a lower stage. When intensity of repression in Serbia reached its highest point (May 17 2000), the regime took over this media house and Belgrade was one of the fewest bigger cities in

55 Serbia without non-regime TV station. After October 5 2000, this media house was the first TV house in Belgrade, which was freed from Slobodan Milosevic's regime.

-page 40-43: Izabela Kisic: Who are the Censors?

Under a regime of Slobodan Milosevic, journalistic agency Tanjug was facing very strict censorship and influence on its editorial policy. Tanjug was, in other words, one of the propaganda means for Slobodan Milosevic's regime. Firstly, when Tanjug's chief became Slobodan Jovanovic, it functioned in a manner that it had bosses who maintained censorship. Later, when Zoran Jevdzevic and Dusan Dzordzevic become editors-in-chief, just a form of censorship has changed. After October 5 2000, Tanjug was taken over temporarily collegiums of employees in this agency house. Tanjug's employees also invited Predrag Markovic, who was cultural and national coordinator in non-government organization G17, to become their editor-in chief. Markovic told Tanjug's journalists to work in the way they feel they should work. Nevertheless, after the October 2000, Tanjug had to face several problems, such as lack of employees, old and inappropriate technical equipment, and the consequences of a former censorship, still very much seen.

-page 44-52: Jelka Jovanovic: An 'Old Lady' after its Breaking-Up

After October 5 2000, journalists of Politika decided to say their editors that they do not agree with editorial policy of a newspaper. According to the author of this article, such (self) criticism of Politika's employees plastically shows the 'state of a spirit' in 'an old lady of Serbian journalism'. Such situation also means that Politika will have to put significant efforts in getting its respect and professional journalistic standards back, the author concludes.

1. DOSSIER (n.8, February 2001) edited by Dzura Vojnovic and Dragutin Rokvic

56

-page 11-13: Filip David: Crisis Is Still On

It is very much doubtful whether reforms are practicable at all with the same people who have been in the forefront of the previous system not long ago. Now we need not dither about it, but may outright assert that the expected restoration of the media has not come, the author of the article notes. A more alert reader of newspapers or viewer of the state TV than the average one should note that 'the hatred speech', nationalist schemes, ghosts of rigorous prejudices are no longer to be found at the front pages, on evening news and generally, in editorial commentaries. These means of propaganda have moved to what seem to be 'side tracks', namely, into the spheres of the terms usage, columns and programmes with very great readerships and viewerships which are therefore influential. On TV, these are available in documentary programmes, chats with patriots, scientific and educational programmes, mostly produced a few years ago and rebroadcast now. In the papers, this well-known frame of thinking is found in ostensibly unbiased letters from the readers, a good many of which may freely be surmised to have been written by the editors themselves, and in topical serials bearing the unified, overt or hidden messages that there has been and still is an international conspiracy against Yugoslavia. Therefore, the ongoing public and open debate of the unquestionable blame that Milosevic should take for looting, crimes and corruption is concurrent with an underground process of rehabilitating him and granting hi man indulgence. A particular means of maintaining the past 'cultural model', that is, all the chief mental frames, stereotypes and propagandist slogan used by Milosevic regime, is now being supplied through 'the secret idiom' of messages, interlarded 'between the lines' in articles of most diverse contents, from politics and economy to culture and entertainment. This new hermeneutics is exemplified by many instances available from all media, including those admittedly independent. The venom of prejudice, fake image of reality, separate virtual realities created by the toughest fallacies, are all still around and the phantasmagorias which have sprung from 'the people-

57 happening' have remained ingrained in the editorial policies and most read and viewed media alike, the author concludes.

-page 61-64: Sanja Cosic: Optimism in Hearty Doses

Since the formation of Serbian Government until today, a notable turn has occurred in the Belgrade daily Politika, or more specifically, in its diligent reporting on the operation of the political establishment here. No longer is Federal Republic of Yugoslavia President Vojislav Kostunica the absolute political star to this daily. Now, or for now, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic occupies the place, which he has kept since the day of his appointment. Naturally enough, Kostunica remains a favourite and neck to neck with him has been Serbian Vice Premier Nebojsa Covic, especially ahead of and after the publication of the platform for ending the crisis which plagues southern Serbia. It is not only persons, as ministers, co-ministers, councillors, vice presidents that are Politika's darlings. The institutions as such are it as well, as ministries and governments. On the other hand, the unquestionable anti-hero of the daily is Slobodan Milosevic who is making the headlines, sub-titles, entrefiles, citations from abroad and mostly, in the context of his expected arrest or extradition to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. At the moment, 'the madness is spreading' and 'diseased cows are threatening the world' but in these parts there are 'no mad cows' and the meat is 'hormones-free'. Unbelievably much attention Politika Pays to the humanitarian package from European Union, that is, the table oil and sugar. Presumably the package, or rather, Politika's access to this aid as covered in several its issues on the same facts, stands as an inherent part of its economic optimism. A similarity between Politika and Vecernje novosti, despite all the differences, is supplied by the shared, recognizable doze of the said optimism in conveying a picture of our realities, exemplified by the following headlines: 'Matriculation Book without Preferential Treatment' 'The World Turns a New Leaf', 'Things are Looking up', 'To Work and Earn More', 'Tapping Ends', 'Fertilizers Coming', 'Home Experts up to Detecting Mad Cows'…

58 -page 65-67: Igor Jovanovic: New Leaderships Face Old Problems

The estimate that the transformation, especially at the state-run houses, will be extremely difficult to achieve is best illustrated by the plights imposed at the very outset of the process on televisions YU Info and Studio B. Most of all, the scarcity of resources, the uncertainty of the status and legislative conditions as well as the political insecurity (as instanced by the term 'federal outlet') have been impeding the first step into the changes. These outstanding issues appear so unlikely to come to a resolution and Studio B has hardly managed to get a director. Then it comes to Television YU Info, it pursues as the current priority attaining the commercial status, that is, being, independent of the state-budget donations. Additionally, the TV is at work on ensuring a broader availability for its airing signal. For the time being, YU Info is said by its managers to be at viewers' disposal in about 80 percent of the territory of Montenegro, in most of Belgrade and in central Serbia, stretching up to the town of . Yu Info has made plans to make its broadcasts available to Yugoslav viewers nationwide by end-March, 2001. The Montenegrian authorities have criticized YU Info as a television they think has been set up with the sole intention of making a favourite in Montenegro of the oppositional Socialist People's Party. There have also been objections on their part that the existence of YU Info constituted an odd precedent in that it airs programmes via transmitters placed atop Yugoslav Army facilities and Yugoslav Ministry of Defence. It is up to the new administration of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to have this issue to overcome, jointly with Podgorica. Besides YU Info, another outlet has got a new leadership – Studio B, now directed by Bojan Selimovic. Director Selimovic has been alleged by the public to have been a Yugoslav Left member whom the October 5 events found in the office of Assistant Editor of pro-regime Radio 202. Appointment of the new Director has been decided upon two and a half months' strenuous search for a choice. It happened that the potential candidates refused to take it on once they got to know about the house's condition and unpaid debts.

59 -page 68-70: Aleksandar Arsenijevic: Spoksemen Ride Again

It took only a few days after October 5 for correspondents of the so-called state media in the town of Cacak to change into new clothes, drop their party uniforms and offer their services to the new master, the author of this article writes. The style in vogue at the outset of the war operations in 1991 established on the state Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) was thus being aped at Cacak. The masking army fatigues were put on by Danica Otasevic, the Cacanski Glas newspaper editor, and Milica Dopudja, the Radio Cacak's journalist, who followed the example of sometime RTS journalist Mila Stula. At the same time, Cacanski Glas paper published the names of the army-call dodgers with the sole aim of exposing them to ignominy. None of the journalists rebelled, except Svetlana Zaric, of Radio Cacak. She was sacked. A similar editorial policy was made into a practice with the privately-run media as TV Galaksija 32 and TV Spektrum, whose owners used to be extremely close to the formerly ruling parties as well as the quasioppositional ones as Serbian Radical Party (SRS). The free media as Cacansko Ogledalo, Ozon and paper Zapisi, which Svetlana Zaric had started to run in the meantime of her dismissal, were incessantly targeted by both politicians and journalists who once worked for the pro- regime media. However, in the wake of the oppositional victory at the 1996 local elections, most of the until-then pro-regime journalists have declared themselves oppositionally-inclined and victimized under the repression of the former municipal authorities. On the eve of the October 5 developments, highlights at Cacak were made by bandwagon-jumping journalists, alongside the floating politicians it had had. One of the most expedient to evolve into a democrat of those was Milica Dopudja, whom the past interim had seen leave the post of the Yugoslav Left (JUL) Spokeswoman for that of an RTS correspondent. Afterwards, the other correspondents for the pro- regime media abruptly modified their way of reporting to such a degree that a reader just could not believe that those were the same people who wrote those hideous articles of mere days or weeks ago. It was dawned on other up-to-now spokesmen and media promoters of the coalition SPS-SRS-JUL that their job has fundamentally stayed unchanged whereas they have

60 had new directors. Simultaneously, the new administration has realized that the former appointments and personnel should be used since the pro-regime journalists will, after all, perform whichever jobs there are, without any redundant enquiries. From the case of Cacak, it is to be assumed that the pro-regime journalist will keep pro-regime regardless of who wields the power, while the free ones will keep on fighting the windmills like Don Quixote did, whatever the upshot. Sycophantism is still valued, the author of this article concludes.

2. DOSSIER (n.9, March 2001) edited by Dzura Vojnovic and Dragutin Rokvic

-page 12-14: Lila Radonjic: Keeping It Mim To Wreak Changes

As a passive, notary-style and in all utterly useless journalism brand has been fostered at next to all editorial offices, news conferences have come to provide a basic material for making daily news and newspapers. Today's news conference, as a digest version of what they used to be, is becoming the staple of the press and TV. This is one reason for the papers and TVs to be nearly exactly alike and with a boring consistence. A propagandist touch here lies in the fact that host of a news conference selects the topics he would enlarge upon and is at pains to present himself as good as he can, naturally enough, the author writes.

3. DOSSIER (n.10, April-May 2001) edited by Dzura Vojnovic and Dragutin Rokvic

-page 19-21: Milorad Roganovic: Change of Mind Comes First

61 The transition is on the way! The money will flow and we will be able to do our jobs in peace. The last year, just to remember it, saw over 600 million US dollars spent by the Czech media marketing. Slovenia's are said to have made use of a third of the sum. And mind You, ours is five times the Slovenian information market. Freedom is coming on, free of arrests, punishment, intimidation… We will be left alone to write and say what we think. But is this what will really happen? Is the euphoria justified? The process will be painful as it involves going into market, making the editorial offices more professional, eliminating the blind obedience and cutting down the inescapably oversize editorial staffs. The commodity of having a sure pay, however small or large it be, and stability will seriously be endangered by publication of information, public judgement, the inevitable ownership transformation and influx of domestic and foreign capital. One of the most delicate problems the present moment poses for the new administration is how to order the ether and eliminate the privileges acquired under the past sultan-fashion regime when the frequencies were handed out by the extent of closeness to 'the family'. The treatment of the electronic media and new law on radio broadcasting will provide a biggest test for the government to be put yet. A specific remnant of the past, the media operating as public companies are growing an increasingly heavier burden for the strained budgets with every passing day. The next to just-born market and demolished economy on the other hand are not boasting sufficient capital for them to advertise and do marketing. The foreign capital will be ready to step in, to invest in the best prepared and capable, only once the ownership relations are sorted out. All in all, the initial shock of the transition will be lived through by the aptest; the most viewed and listened to media. And it takes more than modern equipment and the ubiquitous slogan 'I support DOS' to achieve this. It is a common knowledge that the fine radio and TV programmes are, in the end, ever been and are still devised by experienced professionals. The transition with the state media will really set off the moment they see that the regime changeover must entail a change in editorial policies rather than their switching from the former to the present administration to extol, the author concludes.

62 -page 22-23: Mirko Sebic: Mother Politics and Scribbler

'Why are you denouncing Pink so ardently, they are with us now, don't you know?' – a Serbian Vice Premier queries a media editor. 'The independent' journalists with 'the new' Radio Television of Serbia hold a conversation with the Prime Minister on the occasion of the government's initial 100 days in power so enthusiastically as though they were an electioneering team he employees. Television B-92-in-Chief vocally honours Bogoljub Karic for having had courage enough to award her from his foundation. This is a slice of life from the transitional journalism today. Another fact is that a layman can perceive divisions among the Serbia media, each standing by a political faction. Or, nearly each of them. The one not to take side, is most certain not to survive and thereby betoken its supposed poor quality and impotence. There used to be a simple binary system in power whose predisposition of value was set by the viewpoint taken: those siding with the regime are in service of it and thereby, the menace. Those who accidentally were on the opposite side are calling themselves 'independent' and by opposing the regime are though to be exponents of good. A cynical view of the problem could be that it only took being in opposition to get value attached to what one does automatically. Sure enough, being in opposition also entailed risks but it makes no difference. Brilliant journalists, media products, publications and in spite of existing journalist schools, high-education institutions and donors' educational programmes, we luck the culture of media, the author concludes.

-page 31-34: Jovanka Matic: What Is New on New Radio Television of Serbia

By dissecting the picture of reality conveyed by Radio Television of Serbia (RTS), once can found that the RTS mirror onto the world is really narrow. Principally it looks out on the political arena and only marginally some other spheres of interest besides. On average, of the five topics given coverage by the television (counting the sports and weather out), four address politics and related events. An accidental sample of three Evening News on the RTS (on 22,26 and 30 May) showed that all

63 issues outside politics took up 21 percent of the news segments of the programmes. By allotting the political news most of the time and central place on the news agenda, the RTS editors are keeping high the degree of the society's politicization and sustaining an interest in the public in what the political elite does, whereas all other activities of the country are held less significant. The least present as segments of the image of the daily routine offered by the RTS are the most problematic ones – the economic and social ones. Of 70 news reports in the said news, mere four were on business affairs while on more broadly understood social issues, barring the pollution in Kosovo, there were none. Never-changing speakers address the viewers through the RTS window onto the world: Kostunica-Svilanovic-Djindjic-Covic-Djindjic-Djelic-Covic-Kostunica-Djindjic- Svilanovic-Covic- Interlarded may be a minister, his deputy or an army general and colonel. As the foremost propunders of the stands are state officials, their opinions, being the one available, is represented as universally accepted. On introduction of catechism in school curricula as a topic which has been arousing different reactions with the interested public, the RTS Evening News made a say only by means of an exclusive statement by the Minister in charge of religious affairs, made with no current cause for it. No other view on the current outstanding issue has been given a chance, the author concludes.

-page 39-42: Vesna Vujic: Politicians Dodge Involvement, Journalists Shun Research

The measure of the freedom of the media in Serbia is set by what was there in the period prior to the 'October revolution'. Analysts agree that at a glance, there seem to be no taboo topics for journalists. More attentive viewers and readers rather point to auto-censorship as the chief grievance of the Serbian journalism. Unlike the national media with which the new administration takes care not to interfere directly, some older forms of treatment of the media are retained at the local level. In the town of Kragujevac for instance, there was a public exchange of correspondence between Town Assembly and TV Kragujevac. The Town Assembly Executive Board drew the attention of the local TV, founded by the assembly, to the

64 inadmissibly high degree of censorship. The editorial staff denied the charges. There are not few towns where Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) local members are pitting themselves against each other to the detriment of the media, most often on appointments by their directors and chief editors.

-page 43-44: Aleksandar Arsenijevic: They Just Snub at Any Criticism

Now as before, the media have it hard in the town of Cacak, held by a broader public to be an oasis of freedom and democracy, except for the fact that the incumbent authorities are not resorting to 'solutions' typically found at courts of law. They are supposedly thinking such a course to be counterproductive. Is there a finer proof of this than the case of Cacanski Glas, founded by Cacak Town Assembly, which has had eleven editors and six directors since 1996 to date. Most illustrative is the fact that very few journalists with the paper were ready to act as editors, which fact left it working without one on several occasions. A special kind of treatment is given correspondents from Belgrade editorial offices, the ones who used to work for 'the regime' media before the October 5 changes as well as the independents, as there is displeasure with their writings on local organs of power, who tend to think themselves tantamount to the entire town they run. This dissatisfaction sometimes evolves into open threats they make. An instance of this is Town Assembly Chairman Velimir Ilic accusing Belgrade daily Danas of running an open campaign for having allegedly not published even one text with a positive picture of Cacak for three years. The slow pace the changes in Serbia are taking is exemplified by the fact that until recently, Ilic used to settle in public, say, at press conferences, the accounts he had with some journalists, using vocabulary mindlessly. A TV Cacak journalist was blamed by Ilic in the presence of her colleague that she is working for a less than a crumb of bread. Invading journalists' privacy has become something of a routine occurrence, presumably due to impossibility of refuting the press argumentatively. Obviously, equalising the independent media with the oppositional journalism, both in Cacak and other towns across Serbia was a wrong idea from the start; the

65 authorities today are not capable of taking any criticism of themselves, at least they cannot do it in a civilised manner, the author concludes.

4. DOSSIER (n.11, June-August 2001) edited by Dzura Vojnovic and Dragutin Rokvic

-page 23-26: Bojan Toncic: DOS Struggles for TV Screen

The August bid to elect Editor-in-Chief of Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) came to an end without anything like an outspoken comment on the candidates. Then it was officially mulled because of an apparent bargaining and partition of the editorial offices among the political parties. This betokened a continuing struggle to the last iota of time and space on the TV screen and grip on all other levels of power of two opposed political blocks within the coalition, Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and Democratic Party (DS). And the objective of this struggle is very unlikely making a public service for its citizens. Serbian Vice President Zarko Korac comments on the DSS asking to contribute choice to the national TV Editor-in-Chief. I was dismayed by the hypocrisy of it all. A group of men with the DSS first made no bones about it they opposed appointment of Gordana Susa but denied this in public. Normal work if impossible if they go back in public on what they say in private. So what happened was that the DSS was averse to the appointment of Susa but made a public statement to the contrary, Korac says. Zoran Ivosevic, A Serbian Supreme Court judge, believes that a bid's validity hinges upon evaluating and commenting on the candidates. If no clear majority were won, all obligations would end for the bid proclaimed. It was wrong to make no decisions and fail to consider the applications by candidates who met requirements and to annul the bid, if that was what happened. A unilateral statement of will, a bid bounds the proclaiming party with making decisions on the applications. What it decides on them is another matter altogether. Even a Court may order that decisions bet akin on (appointing) the candidates, Ivosevic said.

66 In the meantime – which looks set to last ad infinitum – the RTS news programme content comes down, more or less, to a 'creative' mix of a party's notice-board messages, celebration of patriotic spirit and servility with only sporadic attempts at addressing the burning social issue this case is.

-page 30-32: Ivan Torov: Gladiators on Media Scene

All the developments on the political and media scenes of the wrecked Serbia over past several months come down to an introductory phase to a gladiatorial struggle for retention of power. And where should one put Serbian media? The pompous enthusiasm in the wake of October 5 has melted down and ran out swiftly, leaving behind it as sole 'inheritance' the absence of the bared state repression over the media and a deluding feel that everything must be (is) better now that Milosevic has gone away. Currently, next to all media in Serbia, especially Belgrade, are preoccupied not with how honestly and professionally to inform Serbia of what is happening to it, but how to switch loyalties without settling for 'a wrong' side. However, the media of Serbia are bound to lose in this battle, as before. This so because, simply put, they are consenting to the imposed 'game code' by politicians and are not even a little defiant towards the make-believe dilemma of being for or against Kostunica and Djindjic, which is also an alarmingly perilous question for this country, the author of this article emphasizes. Manifestly, the Serbian journalism is incapable, either from the staff or degree of professionalism viewpoints, to set on its course of action by itself. A new set of journalists now on the scene are taking their profession as a job offering a chance of survival. They, coupled with the 'old and tried-out masters of the trade' trained in the political and administrative offices in a climate of hench-man's journalism, provide a mix formula which devastates the trade's moral fabric. This situation is unlikely to change until at least some politicians have made a public and genuine renouncement of their ambition to employ the media just for satisfaction of their narrow party-or leadership-concerned interests. The now longstanding crisis in the media is also aggravated by sudden drain in the quality staff as a bulk of till-yesterday independent journalists have either switched to more lucrative trades (such as offices

67 at embassies, political functions or business) or went to work for those state media already known to have been intended for the present and a future administration as their pillars. On the other hand, the lack of legislative regulation for the media leaves open room for free manoeuvring by the authorities.

5. DOSSIER (n.12, September-December 2001) edited by Dzura Vojnovic and Dragutin Rokvic

-page 11-13: Ljubica Markovic: Transition on Hold

A year after the instalment of democratic authorities in Serbia its media are characterized by all typical traits of an ongoing transition. Legislation is late in enforcement, the privileged ones kept their prerogatives, tax concessions are none, long-overdue transformation of state media is yet to come. Because of all this, the state- and privately-owned media are now facing a great uncertainty. As the overriding national wide poverty has brought the dailies circulation down near an all- European rock-bottom law, advertising fees must be very meagre too. To date, no independent survey has been conducted of the situation of the media following 5 October 2000. The state is formally committed to editorial and economic independence of the outlets but practically it has left things unchanged alongside the former regime's pressure apparatus. As an expected equal footing for all outlets has failed to materialize, the chances of it happening are steadily growing less. And the accountability of the journalists who have against the media such as having privileged information recipients and threatening journalists for critical writing live on. The media, especially the local ones in the country's interior, have undergone minor changes, coming down to new managerial appointments, usually by the party-led principle, the author concludes.

-page 14-15: Milan Milosevic: Journalism Imprisoned

68 The home journalism is dominated by light subjects, very many radio and TV stations airing commercials and delivering in between uniform, often shallow and incomplete news from the news agencies. The news offer very few and often no facts and the commonest reported-speech phrase 'he says', there is no considering or authenticating relevance or reliability, abuse and manipulation of the media or their taking sides thoughtlessly. However, the media here are on the side not of the recipients but the Government or the 'reforms' or 'state', but most of them politicians who are in turn accountable to the public. There is a large-scale disregard of the rule with journalists of their non- involvement in what they are reporting on and a considerable number of them are being 'taken prisoner' by the politicians. Until yesterday, there was a division into two conflicting spheres. In suppressing the media, the so-called pro-regime sphere used war-mongering propaganda, henchmen, favouritism of the incompetent, hatred, sycophantism and ethically inadmissible resources. On the non-regime one there were recruitments of the 'fght-Slobodan-Milosevic' generation working at poorly furnished offices, cut off from most of the official information sources, a generation which used to foster solidarity with the opposition before the former regime fell. It has slipped into euphoria and started to share sinecures. Later, some of the overtly pro-regime media saw how things were and devoted themselves whole-heartedly to working for the new administration, replacing their former hate speech with 'pink' kitsch and 'brand mania'.

1. MEDIA DOSSIER (n.13, January-June 2004) edited by: Dragutin Rokvic and Nebojsa Bugarinovic

-page 5-6: Tamara Skrozza: Agitating for Higher Causes

If a world survey of advocacy journalism is ever compiled, the chapter on Serbia will certainly be most picturesque and extensive, Skrozza writes. There was an abundance of cases of openly biased, advocacy and propagandist reporting,

69 comments and analyses in the period since October 2000 until now, even if forget about the shameful 1990s and the war-mongering journalism burdened with a self- styled patriotism and its anti-Milosevic, oppositional and so-called Independent counterpart. NIN weekly journalist Marijana Milosavljevic claims that the bias of the media stays unchanged, but notes that since not long ago, the rift between the DS and DSS supporters of has become unbearable. While he concurs with her assessment, weekly Vreme journalist Jovan Dulovic insists that the reasons for the downright partiality were essentially based on the editorial policies and that 'journalists have to comply with editors' wishes'. Dulovic believes that the responsible media editors partly express personal opinions and are partly led by concrete interests. 'Those who are close to one or another political current will have an opportunity to make progress, enjoy various concessions and freedoms and their media will be looked on kindly'. 'Essentially, nothing has changed. Now, as before, one can tell with certainty whom or what a specific journalist or media outlet will support', says sociologist of culture Ratko BoZovic. Whether it is pathology, too heavy burde of the past or something else, the journalist here often insist that bias, in an open or less obtrusive form, is simply necessary. Be that as it may, the situation of the media four years after the changes in 2000, is pretty chaotic. The four years of partial scrutiny, absence of genuine investigative journalism and divisions into 'these' and 'those' have taken their roll. Divided into camps, the journalists and media are waiting for 'the showdown match' and hoping that their side will win. Perhaps only after it is over will the accidental supporters see (if nothing else) that they are paid to follow the game, not to wave banners, the author concludes.

-page 7-8: Milan Milosevic: A Profession Threatened

Serbian journalist are depressed by insecurity, low pays, unsettled social status, a sense of a lost credibility and destroyed self-esteem as well as an uncertain future of the media they work. Conducted from December 2003 until January 2004, the survey 'Profession: Journalist 2003, paints a picture of a post-traumatic crisis.

70 The position of the print media is not systematically regulated, there are no policies to stimulate literacy or protect the print media and invest the advertising revenues into them, contrary to what some Western states practice. Private electronic media operate in a disorganized space, a wildcat market, without regulated relations in frequency allocation. Essentially, the owners extract profit, may corrupt politicians with publicity, sometimes exercise pressure. The group of the media that operated under the title of independents during the former regime (of Slobodan Milosevic, 1990-2000), now generally have meagre resources, become the prey of the advertisers and could soon be prostituting themselves as well. The local media network, which is also expecting privatization, is, for the most part, in league with the local authorities and the destiny of the editorial boards depends on the political power at the local level. The journalists are obviously apprehensive of being bought cheap by a local power-wielder, the author concludes.

-page 9-10: Dragan Vukasinovic: Cable Soaked with Water Again

The case of TV was one of the fiercest clashes between politics and journalism to have occurred in Serbia since 5 October 2000. The coalition largely composed of the DSS and SPS took over Smederevo from the DOS authorities. With a slight majority, it voted in a new Managerial Board on 26 March and violated the Law on Broadcasting for many of the board members were party or state officials. It ousted the acting Director and journalist Jovica Seslak and named Dragan Kosovac, the agronomist engineer without any experience in the media sphere. The employees protested the removal of Seslak but offered a compromise solution under which someone well-versed in the media work should replace Kosovac. As the authorities thought otherwise, 38 out of the 50 employees and freelancers went on strike the same evening and prevented the new Director from entering the building. After daily daylong demonstrations the authorities changed tactics, cut the power supply to TV Smederevo and knocked it off the air. Smederevo authorities even ordered a relocation of the television, presumably because it was impossible to force the strikers out. The finale took place in 11 June at 3.00 a.m. when Director Dragan

71 Kosovac and a group of people went into the building and took away the entire equipment including the employees' personal belongings.

2. MEDIA DOSSIER (n. 14, June-December 2004) edited by: Dragutin Rokvic and Nebojsa Bugarinovic

-page 20-21: SnjeZana Milivojevic: Political rather than Commercial Motifs

The Serbian print media market is not specifically different than elsewhere only because tabloids emerged much later, but because it is very dynamic and rather non- transparent. Newspapers appear and disappear from the market without clearly explainable commercial justification. Due to such dynamics, their business operations and strategy cannot be properly followed and scrutinized. It seems that circulation figures of the most successful tabloid is on a stable rise, while sales of evening papers and demy-tabloids stagnate or are on a downward slide. If the data on circulation and sales figures are not reliable, it is even less known who are their owners and publishers. Due to their highly partisan orientation, it seems that raison- d'etre of such ventures are political, and certainly not commercial. What are other unique features of Serbian tabloids? First of all, it is the choice of topics covered. The Serbian tabloids, without exception, focus on political life. However, traditionally serious topics are treated in a tabloid manner. What is in more sophisticated societies achieved through focusing the attention of public away from politics – in our society is done through trivialization of politics, or in other words private usurpation of public sphere. Because of that, the effect of such practice is public cynicism vis-a-vis politics and wide-spread apathy towards citizens participation, instead of stimulation of public debate and participation. Through the practice of simplifications, Serbian tabloids offer very narrow reading of events, based on stereotypes, rather selective and discriminatory views. The world presented in such way resembles chaotic mosaic of unrelated events, and the only possible

72 survival strategy is to nurture all kinds of suspicions and phobia: from other people/nations, anything different, or new, the author concludes.

-page 27-33: Svetlana Preradovic: Times of Calmed Passions

Everyone at RTS is waiting for some good news to arrive: The Broadcasting Council to be constituted, Government's redundancy social program to be set out; new systematization of job positions completed; Criminal charges against former management pressed; Subscription fees introduced; Collective contract between employer and union adopted. But it can hardly be said that everybody is just sitting and waiting. The new general manager Aleksandar Tijanic, appointed ten months ago, fulfilled one of his promises to bring some fresh faces to RTS. At the same time, a few people have left RTS. Such was the case of Gordana Susa, Editor-in-chief of news programmes, who resigned without public statement and Nenad Stefanovic promptly replaced her. RTS faced changes in other spheres as well. Trade unions and the management have laid their weapons down. Some 300 employees regained their jobs through winning court cases, after being sacked in 2002. A lesson has been learned – further layoffs have been postponed. It means that the salary kitty is now shared between 6000 instead of 4000 or 4500 employees. A new redundancy (social program from the government is eagerly anticipated, while negotiations between employer (government) and workers on collective contract are in advanced stages, the author emphasizes. There are also three interviews (with Nenad Stefanovic, Gordana Susa and Aleksandar Tijanic) added to this article providing interesting point of views on the (editorial) role and mission of RTS.

-page 41-43: Velja Ilic: Vicious Circle of Politics and Anarchy

The newspaper of the Borba Company is currently 100 percent owned by the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. They no longer exert any political influence, yet for many interested parties it is important who would be registered as the owner of

73 business premises situated at Nikola Pasic (formerly Marx and Engels) Square in downtown Belgrade. The connoisseurs of media affairs in Serbia consider 1986 to be the turning-point in Borba's recent history. In that year editorial transformation of Borba daily began from a socialist propaganda paper into first genuine opposition paper in the region. At the same time, the Borba company, owned by the federal state (SFRY), was included on the list of state-run media to be recognized in a way to diminish/eliminate subsidies from the budget. The Internal Shares Act passed by the government of Ante Markovic in 1989, represented the legal framework for such reorganization. At the end of 1990, it was decided that the Borba joint stock company would be founded. The state's stake was reduced from 100 percent to 17 percent, some 10 percent of the shares were distributed among the employees, and the reminder was offered to the public for sale. It is interesting to note that tycoon Bogoljub Karic and notorious banker Jezdimir Vasiljevic (at the time both were Milosevic's trusted sidekicks), offered to purchase all of the Borba shares. Followind the 9 March 1991 opposition rallies, the Borba newspaper, with a respectful circulation of 50.000 copies, became a thorn in Milosevic's side. As early as the end of 1994, Milosevic's men seized the control of Borba joint stock company. Most of journalists from the Borba daily newspaper and the expelled majority shareholder of re-nationalized Borba Company, Dusan Mijic, founded a new newspaper – Nasa Borba. After 5 October 2000 events, Manojlo 'Manjo' Vukotic showed up at what was left of the state-owned Borba Company as the new 'spontaneously imposed' political commissioner. A fresh reorganization of the Borba publishing house commenced. Pursuant to the 2002 decision of the federal government, the Borba Company, as a federal public institution, was split into three companies – Novosti, the Borba Company and the Stamparija Borba Company The present-day Borba Company existence is at least partly based on the capital invested into Borba ltd. By its shareholders in 1990, ranging from ordinary citizens to companies and its employees. Because of that the settlement of dispute between Borba and Novosti must take into account all previous transformations and privatizations, and compensate/indemnify all former shareholders of Borba company.

74 So far, there has not been a rational and legally valid solution in sight, preventing any dishonest gains and exploitation of the chaotic situation, the author of this article concludes.

3. MEDIA DOSSIER (n. 15, January-March 2005) edited by: Dragutin Rokvic and Nebojsa Bugarinovic

-page 14-15: Dragisa Stankovic: Return of 1990's

Following the September 2004 local elections, when Maja Gojkovic (SRS) was elected as the Mayor, the Novi Sad city assembly (controlled by the coalition of SRS, SPS and DSS) ordered complete purge of directors of city enterprises and appointed their people. The 'tsunami wave' hasn't missed the city's television station Apolo. Sasa Adamovic, a SRS member was appointed as director, whose biography hardly mentions any media experience. First steps of the new director were to discipline journalists and to adapt editorial policy to accommodate liking of the governing coalition. These steps immediately reminded public to the early 1990's, when the servants of Milosevic's regime dismissed and sent on 'unpaid leave' politically unsuitable journalists and editors. The new director of TV Apolo Adamovic in face to face meetings with the undesirable journalists to agree on contract termination, but in a case they didn't accept such option he threatened them with dismiss. First victims were journalists Tatjana Vencelovski and Dimitrije Vidanovic, who publicly opposed pressures from the new management. Vencelovski's 'mortal sin' was when she invited on the program professor Jovan Komsic, and asked for his 'interpretation of the success of the Radicals in Novi Sad'. Vidanovic was publicly criticized for refusing to personally read the letter from the Mayor of Novi Sad to the Dnevnik newspaper – action which director Adamovic qualified as unprofessional. Not long after those events the two journalists have been declared as redundant, in spite of provisions of the Labour Law. With the help of Independent Association Journalists of Vojvodina, lawyer

75 Srdjan Sikimic brought the charges against TV Apolo for illegal dismissals of journalists. In the meantime, despite dismissal of those two on grounds of being 'technological surplus', new employees have been hired.

-page 47-48: Srdjan D. Stojanovic: Media in Sandzak

Since early 1990's and demise of former SFRY, the media scene in Serbia and in Sandzak (as one of its regions) has changed dramatically, from domination of state- owned and controlled outlets towards unstoppable growth of private sector and emergence of so-called new media. Unfortunately, the vast number of new media outlets has not resulted in better quality of content available to the audiences/citizens, neither can it be said that some kind of improvement in creation of democratic political climate has been achieved. According to the author of this article there are five main obstacles for development of professional and democratic media in the Sandzak region: -Weak sense of democratic values and practices within the ranks of regional political actors/elites; -Lack of independence (editorial) and professional competence; -Inadequate financial/economic base to support independent editorial policy; -Insufficient and obstructed access to information; -Lack of knowledge of a new legal framework for public media, along with unfinished legislative work on media regulation. There is a climate of increased political pressures on Sandzak journalists, caught in the political crossfire between the two main Bosniak parties. Journalists are urged by politicians to take sides, and strong pressures are exercised on independent professionals, who have expressed fear for their rights and ability to work freely in the region.

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