10. 08. 2004

New on Media Online

THE PRINT MEDIA IN BiH – PARENTAL GUIDANCE SUGGESTED!
By: Hamza Baksic

Almost everything that parents do not want to hear from children, in the name of manners from home, children can find in the press. How to address the person you are speaking to, how to attain a goal through conversation – children can also find this in the press. Therefore, should front pages, along with the price, carry the warning that goes before movies with scenes of violence or sexual dialog: ‘Parental Guidance Suggested'?

ELECTRONIC MEDIA IN BULGARIA – PREDICTING THE PRESENT
By: Alexander Boytchev

The Bulgarian viewer likes to watch TV. According to a survey made by the National Statistics Institute in Bulgaria (NSI), nearly one-half of all households in the country have cable television, or approximately three million people (delivered by over 800 service providers); the ownership of a TV set is about 93 percent. The variety of programs and broadcasts is a result of well-known and proven mechanisms and models from the West, with the slight difference being that they appear on air in Bulgaria a couple of years after the originals.

HATE SPEECH IN THE ELECTRONIC MEDIA IN ELECTION CAMPAIGNS IN SERBIA
By: Dubravka Valic-Nedeljkovic

No meter how hard the policy makers, journalistic associations, international organizations, Non-Governmental sector, experts, media monitors, try to create rules and mechanisms which will be used in media practice, all multi-party pre-election campaigns in Serbia which have been presented in media so far contained the hate speech- sometimes openly, but more often covered up.

DEFAMATION LAW: THE HYPOCRISY OF MINISTERIAL PROTECTION
By: Stojan Obradovic

Croatia is at the top of countries in transition by the number of court cases against journalists and media in which financial penalties are sought for various kinds of defamation and libel or inflicting what is called mental anguish upon the damaged party (often including, unfortunately, different political and public strongmen). The number of these lawsuits has exceeded one thousand and the total damage requests amount to millions of euros.

On the trail of a croat request to restructure the public broadcasting system:
DISSATISFIED WITH THE STATE
(Radenko Udovicic)

In late July, the Bosnian political and media public was thrown into turmoil by a request made by delegates from the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ), the strongest Croat party in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and its coalition partner the Croat Demo-Christians, to separate the public broadcasting system into three channels – one each in the Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian language. The HDZ request should not be the least bit surprising and is only a result of long-time dissatisfaction of almost all Croat political parties, as well as the Catholic Church, with how Bosnia-Herzegovina is organized.

INTERNET PRESENTATION OF MEDIA IN SERBIA: MORE FOR THE INTELLECTUAL ELITE THAN FOR THE DIASPORA
By: Zoran Stanojevic
In Serbia and Montenegro, especially after the fall of the Milosevic regime, there is no suffocation of media freedom that would be compensated for on the internet. What is more, the process is almost reversed. The media in Serbia is ready to publicize even what can normally be found solely on the net, at suspiciously registered addresses.

ON THE TRAIL OF A REPORT BY THE TEMPORARY MEDIA COMMISSIONER IN KOSOVO:
ABUSE OF CINEMA VERITE IN TV JOURNALISM
Tragic events in Kosovo in mid-March this year again brought into limelight the shameful role of the media in the region. In this case, the stigma is primarily on Albanian-language broadcasters seated in Pristina.

ON THE BROADCASTING STRATEGY: FREQUENCY ALLOCATION ANNOUNCED A MEDIA TEMPEST
By: Velizar Sredanovic
That the burden of media reform in Montenegro will not sink just certain private electronic media is clear to everyone who carefully follows the media situation. Republic and local public services are threatened no less. Radio Television Montenegro is choking in debts and thousands of employees received only two salaries this year, despite evident programming progress towards a public service.

HOW PAPERS IN SERBIA REPORTED ON A CERTAIN EVENT: BERETS IN 100 WAYS
By: Vladan Radosavljevic
The appearance of a disbanded police unit in the Serbian public is a sensation for some, while for others it has not even happened. From front page to silence about the whole thing. Acknowledging the fact that there is a lot of non-professionalism in the Serbian media, this issue can be no accident...

INTERNET WITH A HUMAN FACE - A COMMON RESPONSIBILITY: GLOBAL CODE OF ONLINE JOURNALISM ETHICS
By: Dusan Babic

In this information age anyone can perform the role of a journalist. The World Wide Web allows anyone, anywhere, and timely to post piece of information, comments, opinions, pictures, etc., that can be viewed almost instantaneously around the globe. But it might be also a hate inspiring language onlined. If so, we have to care who gets called a journalist? And the key to that issue is ethics.

GAMES WITH THE PUBLIC SERVICE
By: Velizar Sredanovic
One of the most important symbols and pillars of the Montenegrin state, Radio Television Montenegro (RTCG), after a year and a half in an environment of a new set of media laws, is on the verge of a financial abyss. A stable source of RTCG funding as a precondition for independence of the public service has not yet started functioning. The play with the public service involves political parties, the state, the non-governmental sector, the international community…

Bosnia and Herzegovina:
A PART OF THE BALKANS IN THE FRENCH PRESS - IRREGULARLY AND SELECTIVELY, DIVERGENT OPTICS
The superscript headline implies the three central states of the former Yugoslavia -- Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and FR Yugoslavia, actually since recently Serbia and Montenegro -- what kind of media coverage they received and how they were treated in three leading French daily papers -- Le Monde, Le Figaro and Liberation -- in the period from June to December last year. The analysis, sublimed in the headline, does not strive to be comprehensive, but is rather an attempt to point out the reflections of the events in this region in the monitored papers, without suggesting their overall editorial policy and concept.

Serbia:
MEDIA IN STATE OF EMERGENCY
State of emergency implies media censorship. It is not clear to anyone, however, what is permitted and what is not, as a result of which the media on one side and the authorities on the other are in a situation of compromise. One weekly and two dailies have been banned, but for the time being there are few of those who do not support the Serbian government's decision. The primary goal of the state of emergency - showdown with organized crime - is so big that the public approves even a measure such as suffocation of press freedom. Nevertheless, the campaign must be fast and efficient in order to be justified.

Bosnia and Herzegovina:
NEW BOOKS: PRIME TIME CRIME– BALKAN MEDIA IN WAR AND PEACE
The latest book by Kemal Kurspahic, 'Prime Time Crime: Balkan Media in War and Peace', published by the United States Institute of Peace Press, will have its first promotion in early March in Washington, and then in New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts (Harvard University). The first draft copy (bound galley) of this book has been made available these days; as we found out in the meantime, it does not significantly differ from the final version, apart from certain technical interventions.

Slovenia:
THE LAW ON RTV SLOVENIA - WHO DOES NOT RESPECT IT?
The Law on Radio-Television Slovenia, gave journalists from national radio and television decisive power in issues of appointment of editors-in-chief. However, already in the first next vote in the RTV Council, the television programming director ignored journalists' opinion and proposed his own man, who also suited politicians at that time, to the position of news program editor.

Bosnia and Herzegovina:
THE PRESS IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA ON THE EUROPEAN IDEA: SURMOUNTING EUROPE
Generally speaking, Europe in the institutionalized framework has a big presence in the Bosnian-Herzegovinian media, including the press. This is very logical as admission to the European Union and the feeling that Bosnia is truly a part of the old continent is the only thing on which there is full political consensus among the political parties in BiH, irrespective of the ethnicity, ideology or territory they represent.

Macedonia:
DISCUSSION ON NEW BROADCASTING LAW - ORIENTATION TO ADOPT A EUROPEAN MODEL
The present Law on Broadcasting, passed in 1997, is already outdated. Many ideas are circulating in the public on future legislative solutions, but the legislator has not taken action yet.

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Media Online is a journal on media in South East Europe published by Media Plan Institut.