Bosnia and Herzegovina TIME FOR CHANGES

Bearing on mind huge significance of mass media for inter-ethnic reconciliation and democratisation, the international community set to work on stabilisation and development of media scene immediately after the Dayton Peace Agreement came into force. Ever since, few are civil spheres that have focused so much international attention as media, so that international community also bears a great deal of responsibility in reconstruction of media.

Development of Media: Explosion and Stabilisation

In early 2000, 210 radio stations and 71 televisions broadcast their programmes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Around 130 dailies, magasines, journals and periodicals were edited. Among them, 6 were dailies (three in Sarajevo and 2 in Banjaluka) and 20 weeklies, however, in small rates (between 60 and 80 thousand copies a day for all six dailies). News were brought by 6 press agencies, 4 among them with daily services (2 in Sarajevo, one in Mostar and Banjaluka each).[1]

It was already during the war that the media explosion started. While in 1991 there were only 54 radio stations and 5 TV stations on the air, by 1997 their number increased to 156 radio stations and 52 TV stations. The reason for such an expansion was in understanding that electronic media make powerful weapon for the aims of propaganda, while at the same time favourable conditions were created by lifting the administrative bans on foundation of private media and the all-out chaos in usage of frequency spectrum.

In a certain measure, the blame for this situation lays also on international community, which by means of abundant donations supported foundation of numerous media of independent orientation, in particular radio and TV stations. Their intervention was aimed to creating a plural media scene, which will weaken the influence of state-owned, i.e. party media. Unfortunately, the criteria for granting donations have remained, at least, doubtful until today.

The development of media in BiH in the course of the last five years can be divided into several phases. The first phase falls in the immediate post-war period when, even though military operations ceased, media remained engaged into a verbal war. The state media were a reign of the language of hatred, while newly emerged independent media could hardly survive. The media space was particularised and international organisations supervised the state media, though not too effectively.

The second phase, which started immediately after the first post-war elections in autumn 1996, is characterised by setting up of a number of local media, independent from the politics of local authorities, with generous aid by international donours. OHR and OSCE installed two large international projects at the level of the entire state - TV OBN and Radio FERN, in the function of creating a democratic atmosphere on the eve of elections. Media from Belgrade and Zagreb continued their propaganda activities in the media space of BiH. The High Representative for the first time resorted to sanctions against media – SFOR overtook the transmitters of Republika Srpska in Pale, and the television headquarters was moved to a more co-operative part of Republika Srpska, to Banjaluka.

The third phase of changes in the media portrait is marked by the beginning of transformation of the state-run radio and TV stations into public services. This process was initiated in 1998, but has not finished so far. It was imposed by decisions and decrees of the High Representative, after unsuccessful attempts to place that task on local authorities and editorials of state RTV stations. According to plans, BiH should have two public entity RTV stations and one public service for the entire territory of BiH.

At the same time it became apparent that media expansion is not followed by the quality, so the international community started with investments into the education of journalists. The Independent Commission for Media was founded, as the topmost regulatory institution in the area of broadcasting. In March 2001, the Commission was integrated into the Regulatory Agency for Communications, which, under international supervision, operates at the level of the entire state. This phase saw definitive closing down of the illegally established system of Croat RTV in BiH Federation, which effectively operated as a subsidiary of Croatian radio-television in Zagreb. Under the pressure of Independent Commission for Media, the explicit vocabulary of repulsion definitely vanished from most media.

The last phase, which is still ongoing, can be called stabilisation phase, even though its effects are only partially visible for now. The international community desisted from giving support to its own media projects - OBN and FERN (the former, in debts, is given to local personnel for care; the latter is integrated into the public BH Radio 1), which were anyway never too well received in the local media community. Nor could they compete with the state broadcasters in terms of popularity. Now the priority is being given to transformation of state media into public services. In this phase, OHR and OSCE work on building a media legislature, in the attempt to put some order into a chaotic situation, which was caused by destruction of former state, war and political obstructions by political parties after the war. In absence of readiness by the local authorities to enact necessary laws, OSCE produced draft laws on free access to information and defamation.[2]

In this phase, the international community is attempting to urge Bosnian media to find financing resources themselves. Donations are drastically decreased and the media, whic lived on them are now at the edge of collapse. Media market is not operational, and most media are not equipped even for rudimentary possibilities of the market. In addition, the Regulatory Agency for Communications applies too sharp regulations for issuing long-term working licences. Only in the area of Tuzla, among 63 radio and TV stations, 43 were not issued the licenses in the first round of selection. Through application of these criteria, the number of radio and TV stations could be decreased for two thirds. Their present number anyhow far out-ways the possibilities and needs of common interest, public and advertisers. Unfortunately, it can happen that the situation like that brings about disappearance of those media which have significantly contributed to establishment of democratic atmosphere in some parts of the country.[3]

Through all these phases, however, the international community failed to identify and support the reform initiatives within local forces. Thus, a sort of semi-protectorate has been established, even though it is not publicly recognised. This might not have been an insoluble problem if the incomplete, compromise and illogical solutions of international community had not prevented defining a consistent strategy of media development in BiH.

It is partly caused by deficiency of the Dayton Agreement itself. The international media intervention was initiated more by the spirit than by the letter of that document. In fact, the Dayton Agreement and the BiH Constitution as its part, hardly tackle the issue of media whatsoever. It is only the Article 11 of Annex 10, which deals with creation of positive atmosphere for elections, that says 'parties will provide… freedom of speech and press'. The part of BiH Constitution, which defines state responsibilities, does not mention media, not even those that ensure identity of the state – the state or public radio-television. Media are mentioned only indirectly, in Article III Point 1, which describes responsibilities of BiH institutions and imposes the obligation of 'establishing and functioning of common and international communications'. This formulation could also be interpreted as obligation of the state to regulate some issues of RTV frequencies, i.e. some issues of broadcasting. Media, however, remain as the responsibility of entities, while in the BiH Federation they are even pushed back to the responsibility of cantons.

The international community has regardless treated media sphere in the same way as military and political spheres, following the logic that 'media belong to parties'. So, its priority was to separate the 'warring parties' (the media), and it continued to work on reconstruction alongside their war mentors, which is the contradiction inherent to that process.

A genuine turning point in these futile attempts came with the document called 'Media Reform' from the conference in Madrid, which supports the High Representative in his activities to transform state media into public services and places request in front of donour countries to help the work of Independent Commission for Media, urges enacting of media legislature in both entities, requests Croatian RTV and Serbian RTV to respect international broadcast standards and supports OSCE and Independent Commission in defining and implementing clear rules on media behaviour.

Based on these authorities, the High Representative set to work on media reform in 1998. When the international community clearly understood that local authorities would never agree with radical reforms of media, it practically threw the local factors 'out of the game' and set to creating and imposing laws by itself, with quite a good reason convinced that the then ruling authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina would never accept them.

The International Intervention: Decisiveness Deprived of Continuity

The international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been engaged through international institutions responsible for implementation of Peace Agreement. These institutions are OHR, OSCE, SFOR, United Nations and its agencies, European Union, European Council. Office of the High Representative is authorised for construction of new broadcast systems, establishment of regulatory bodies, reconstruction of state TV network and enactment of media laws. OSCE governs media conduct in pre-electoral activities, protection of journalists’ rights and freedoms and prepares of relevant laws accordingly. SFOR organises propaganda campaigns for its mission, it founded Radio Mir, and aids media, mainly locally and on a smaller scale. Among private and non-government organisations, the most remarkable was the part of Soros Fund Open Society BiH. Nearly every West European country was involved in donours’ programs through its agencies for international development or non-government foundations. According to the information obtained by Media Plan Institute Sarajevo, 20 offices of diverse organisations dealing with Bosnia-Herzegovinian media were active in Sarajevo in 1997. This trend of interest in media situation in BiH continued up until 1999, i.e. until the outburst of Kosovo crisis. The sudden fall in interest did not happen because the work in Bosnia was over, but because the international machinery of military, political and media intervention shifted to another crisis area.

The forms of media intervention changed many times in the course of international engagement in BiH, depending on circumstances. Regardless of how much this fact reflected adaptability of international community, at the same time remains clear that the international administration lacked a long-term perspective.

Everything started with support to foundation and work of free media. The international community assessed that propaganda role of electronic media would be best combated through granting financial and technical assistance for foundation of new media and maintenance of media that proved independently orientated. Between 1995 and 1997, 66 new media were established, among them 57 new radio and TV stations. According to information by International Crises Group (ICG), the amount of 25 million and 200 000 German Marks was invested into local media only in 1996.[4] The assessments are made that other organisations, whose centers were not registered in Sarajevo, donated at least another 10 million marks.

When we gather the largest donations together, and with the assumption that smaller donours gave additional 5 million marks per year each, we come to the amount of 135 million marks invested in media during the five post-war years; these figures should be taken with reserve, though.

But the result of these activities still remains significant: the monopoly of state media was broken up, and a more plural media atmosphere created. However, the entire project was conducted without sufficient co-operation among the donours, which brought about the possibility for certain manipulations. Never a coherent plan of needs was produced, so the media were emerging in a disordered manner, and only on the bases of donours’ superficial judgement on qualities of donations users, and frequently improvised projects. Numerous media with inexperienced professional teams, donation-expecting logic of behaviour, management unprepared for media market and the programmes unattractive for increasingly fastidious public, now face closure due to application of new regulatory rules.[5]

Installation of international projects. TV OBN and Radio Fern, established in 1996, were the greatest hope of the international community, who trusted in fast democratic changes, breaking through barriers, confidence building and reconciliation. Leaving central media under the authority or influence of the creators of war, the international community soon understood that these state media could not be its ally in peace implementation, so it decided to install its own projects. OBN and FERN had a true impact on removal of the barrier, as they were the first to cover the entire state. However, the action of initiation of these networks was conducted without sufficiently thorough prepares (TV OBN went on the air seven days before the 1996 elections) and lead with a naïve ambition to eliminate negative effects of long-standing nationalists propaganda in several weeks of broadcasting. Both projects undergone crises caused by absence of a long-term strategy of development, and due to ambiguous legal status, which failed to define who their virtual, and who formal owner was.[6]

Instead of doing its best to save the most influential media (Srpska RTV, RTV Herzeg-Bosnia and RTV BiH) from nationalistic influences and help creating a common pan-Bosnian network, the international community kept them aside for two years, attempting to create their rivals in competing international networks. However, even in 1999, only 5.5 percent audience regularly watched TV OBN, while regular audience of Radio FERN was 3.6 percent. On the contrary, two most popular televisions in BiH were RTV BiH (25.90%) and RTV RS (14.40).

For that reason the international community decided to abandon its alternative projects and invest into reconstruction of state media. This work surely started late. Two important post-war years were lost, when a chance still existed to take these powerful propaganda levers out of the hands of shaken nationalists. The reform practically started in 1998 but went on so slowly and ineffectively, that in 1999 the High Representative had to intervene through his decisions. At that moment, either RTV BiH or RT RS were no longer capable of performing reforms, because many a good journalist and engineer had already left them, management had lost any prospect of development and remained absolutely obsessed with national and entity interests, while the financial situation was catastrophic. The international supervisors of reforms often brought even more confusion through their unclear decisions and changing concepts, so that this project has not been finalised so far.

Support to Professionalisation. Education of journalists and other media personnel and establishment of a fundamental ethic code were the main forms of international assistance in enhancing media professionalism.

It was only in 1998 that the great education campaign started. Tens of various organisations for education based in Western Europe and make-shift training groups formed by their NGOs with their programs of training simply beleaguered Bosnian media, which were often not at the level of European knowledge and experience. The principle of short, “flying” courses and training sessions organised without inquiry into the needs, with insufficiently motivated students and a 'moonlighting' approach by organisers failed to yield cost-effective results. However some among the international organisations (for example, French donors, BBC and IREX) are now attempting to place their support to education into a broader local context (university education, local educational centres, education through work).

Unfortunately, the educators did not form local experts capable of continuing the job, and many education processes suffered of the lack of continuity.

Combating hate speech. The international community has been rather successful in this, even though during the first year it employed lots of tact in coping with both media and nationalist authorities. Reactions of international factors were reduced to comic “apologises” written throughout the OSCE and OHR offices, and by order read on the air. The most consistent and effective pressure on media to accept basic ethic standards came with setting up of the Independent Commission for Media (1998), which established editorial codes for programmes and press, introduced media monitoring and sanctions for violations.

Yet, the hate speech has not been entirely eradicated – it can often be found in presenting the topics from the recent past. It is also the question how media understood the request on balanced reporting, which arises from the ethic journalistic code: some have understood it as a call to 'dull the edge', even when they had a full right to be sharp.[7]

Media legislation. Chaotic situation in media legislative, virtual absence of any feasible law in that area, required prompt reaction by the international community. Even tough the Dayton Peace Agreement has no reference to media, already in 1997 OHR decided that a minimum of state responsibility must be ensured in provision of frequencies and public service broadcasting.

The Independent Commission for Media, now Regulatory Agency for Communications is probably the most competent international institution so far, which will be able to give its authorities over to BiH state in due time. However, the conception of the Agency remains somewhat problematic, because it is responsible both for making regulations, monitoring their implementation and sanctioning violations, so that the key democratic principle of division of authorities is breached thereby. In addition, the procedures of work themselves are not sufficiently transparent; the appeal procedure ends in the Agency, without the right to appeal to a higher instance or court. This comes as a consequence of its off-system position: it was founded by OHR, but formally it responses to no one. We expect that these problems will be solved after the Agency is incorporated into the state structures.

Time for Changes

This review of the activities of international community in media sphere explicitly indicates the importance of international media intervention in overall democratic development of BiH. However, the methods to which the international community resorted were interventionist indeed and mainly based on pragmatic campaigns and short-term aims. Even though this interventionism was necessary, especially immediately after the war, the lack of readiness to produce a long-term development project remained the most serious weakness of international activities in the sphere of media in BiH.

Even more serious is the fact that any continuity of changes has been blocked due to avoiding partnership with local structures, so that they are now fully dependent on protectors’ measures of international community. BiH with its imposed laws is now getting closer to Europe, however, the state is absolutely incapable of creating these laws and pursuing their implementation by itself.

This is the reason why local structures must be soon enabled to independently enact media regulations in the spirit of European standards, while regulatory authorities should be passed over to state institutions and civil society, with full political and legal guarantees that professionalism and free media development will be preserved after the authorities have been passed over. In addition, any action in this respect must involve support to the development of local research infrastructure and education capacities, particularly in the field of media management.

Zoran Udovicic is president of Media Plan Institute Sarajevo and editor in chief of Media Online. Translation by: O.H.

[1] Information taken from the report by Z. Udovicic et al, 'Media on the Turning-Point-Media Portrait of BiH', 2001, on http://www.mediaonline.ba/

[3] More on http://www.mediaonline.ba/, Licenses Only for Professional and Solvent Media, 2000.

[6] According to the information obtained from various sources, on which Media Plan Institute relies, 20 million dollars (without income from advertisements) were invested in OBN during the five years of its existence, while annual investment into FERN was one million dollars.

[7] A characteristic example is 'Osloboðenje' commentator A.S., who was publicly reprimanded by the OSCE Commission for Media in 1996 due to a text in which he expressed public disagreement with election of Momèilo Krajisnik in the BiH Presidency; Krajisnik is now indicted for war crimes and he is in the Hague.

Published by Media Plan Institute.
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source: Media Online
published by: Roland Brunner rbr@medienhilfe.ch date of release on this site: 02-11-2001

Medienhilfe Ex-Jugoslawien

Professionelle Solidarität gegen Nationalismus und Chauvinismus
Professional solidarity against nationalism and chauvinism

From Media Online, 01-11-2001: http://www.mediaonline.ba/mediaupite/clanak.html?sifra=4084