SUBSCRIPTION

No 56, Vol I 

The mandate of the General Director of RTV BH Mirsad Purivatra came to term on 11 April, and John Shearer, representative for transfer of property took office, informed the Founding Board of PBS. According to the decision of the Founding Board of the Public Broadcasting Service of RTV BH (PBS) of 14 February this year, on the date of the expiration of the mandate of the General Director of RTV BH, function of management of RTV BH is to be overtaken by the interim administration.

Since the members of the administration of PBS BH, who are ex officio members of the interim administration of RTV BH, have not been nominated as yet, the Founding Board has decided that Vladimir Bilic and Fahrudin Balvanovic, Director and Deputy Director of RTV F BH respectively, shall constitute the interim administration of RTV BH until the nomination of the members of the PBS administration.

The new Federation RTV and the Public Broadcasting Service for the entire BH are to no one’s taste and they are not receiving either a consensual or individual support on the part of the ruling representatives of the political will. One (Serb) party cares less for these changes, the other (Croat) announces that it will abstain, while the third (Bosniak) party is dissatisfied because the process of transformation is not to its mold. The Law on the RTV of the Federation of BHwas imposed by the High Representative, since the Federation Parliament did not adopt it, with the Government in Banja Luka also giving the impression of not doing anything in regard to its law. The representatives of the so called public interest in both entities are not even attempting (or maybe can not find the way) to say anything about the RTV which issupposed to be theirs, i.e. – p u b l i c . The RTV was important to the political parties at the time when they led their electoral campaigns, while the spectators and listeners can express their praises (or disapproval) only to the window clerks who collect the subscription fees for the Power Distribution Company. It seems that the only one who cares is the international community, which itself is not sometimes consistent in its behaviour, or is running out of breath (and money sometimes) in implementing quickly its promises. The key task – to create a good RTV – is yet awaiting a handful of people who have accepted to become the managers or the members of the founding, management or supervisory boards.

Daily Papers on Krajisnik Arrest

Media Plan monitored daily newspapers on April 4 - 7 to see how comprehensively, professionally and with which political approaches the BH dailies reported on the arrest of Momcilo Krajisnik. We monitored Dnevni avaz, Oslobodjenje, and Vecernje novine in the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Glas srpski and Dnevne nezavisne novine in the Republika Srpska.

Based on this monitoring, we can conclude that papers in the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and those in the Republika Srpska showed completely different political approaches. Oslobodjenje, Dnevni avaz and Vecernje novine heartily welcomed the arrest of this politician who marked the last decade in Bosnia-Herzegovina, underlining his responsibility for crimes committed during the war and obstruction of “Dayton” after it. Dnevne nezavisne novine and Glas srpski, on the other hand, did not deny Krajisnik’s responsibility, but they seriously reproached the international community for the time and manner in which he was arrested, and tolerance of responsibility of senior Bosniak officials during the war. They also openly called on the Republika Srpska authorities to finally regulate relations with the tribunal in The Hague so that similar scandals would be prevented in the future.

RS abolishes the practice of collecting the RTV subscription fees by way of telephone bills

From April this year, the telephone bills of the citizens of Republika Srpska (RS) will be reduced by five Marks, i.e. by the amount of the RTV subscription fee which was paid by the consumers of the services of TELEKOM RS, regardless of whether they possessed or not radio and tv sets.

The General Director of RTV RS, Andjelko Kozomara, stated, and the Board of Directors of this house subsequently confirmed, that the TELEKOM had thereby not only one-sidedly breached the October 1998 Agreement but had also left the RTV RS without the basic funding resources, thereby jeopardising its operation as public broadcasting service.

¨From The Region

Media Picture of Kosovo

The situation in media in Kosovo does not differ much from the overall situation in the region. Newly-launched media generally reflect the political philosophy of the existing ethnic Albanian political parties, while for the remaining Serbs, Belgrade press is distributed in the Serb enclaves of Gracanica, Orahovac, Kosovska Kamenica, Kosovo Polje, and Kosovska Mitrovica.

Among daily newspapers, we should mention Kohaditore (daily paper Time), published by Veton Suroi, the daily Kosova sot (Kosovo Today), Rilindija (Renaissance), Zeri (Voice), Vota sot (World Today), Dita (Day), Epoha e re (New Epoch), etc. The most popular paper is Kohaditore, which balances between ethnic Albanian national aspirations, objective information and positions of the international community in building a new democratic and multinational Kosovo society.

With the arrival of the international mission in Kosovo, the most power radio-television institution in Kosovo was arbitrarily closed. That was Radio-Television Pristina, which recently marked its 55^th anniversary. In the place of the once powerful institution which employed more than 1,000 workers, Radio-Television Kosovo was created with a much smaller number of employees and a poor, dreary and unprofessional program.

According to information from international sources in Kosovo, dozens of frequency allocation applications have been submitted to responsible international bodies. In addition to RTV Kosovo, this region is also covered by one Albanian Radio Television channel, and also by the powerful Albanian TV station “Klan” and signal of the private TV station “AA”, founded by former TV Pristina worker Agim Avdinu.

¨News

IMC mainly satisfied with media during the election period

The Independent Media Commission has expressed its satisfaction with the work of Radio and TV broadcasters during the pre-election period, their compliance with the IMC Code on Editing of Radio and TV programmes and their impartial covering of party activities. 

With exception of only a few of them, the radio and TV houses have ensured the fair implementation of the principle of fair reporting, and avoidance ofoffensive language, reads the release of IMC.

¨The World of Media

CNN let the Army in the Studio

Two leading American channels, Cable Network News (CNN) and National Public Radio (NPR) have recently admitted that they have allowed the psychological operations officers from the military services to work in these media. NPR rejected the allegations that the special force officers had influenced the editorial policy, adding that the military left as soon as the management had discovered their presence. The military on their side claim that the only task of these special forces was to get acquainted with the way of functioning of media. The special forces allegedly had a task to perform simple daily jobs like answering the phones and similar, but the very fact that they reported from the studio as the reporters from Kosovo caused protests and an avalanche of questions concerning the independence of media.

“It may be that the CNN was a targetof the psychological operations units. However, it is hard to believe in such a naiveté”, said Alexander Cocburn, a liberal press commentator. He added that during the Kosovo war, like in many other recent wars, the CNN broadcasts were full of endlessly long speeches of fervent advocates of bombarding, of whom many were retired generals.

¨Supplement

Code on Advertising and Sponsoring for Radio and TV Broadcasters

The Independent Media Commission (IMC) has come out with a Radio and TV Code concerning advertising and sponsoring, which came into force on April 15, 2000. This Code applies to all advertising activities and sponsoring of programmes, and concerns both public and private Radio and TV broadcasters in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The regulating of commercials in electronic media is characteristic of the majority of the Western countries, and has for its purpose the establishment of a fair system between the advertisers and the media, as well as protection of the public from frequently excessive broadcasting of commercials in prime time.
 
 
 

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Council:Media Plan Institute

Prof. Dr. Muhamed Nuhic, Hamza Baksic (Sarajevo); Perica Vucinis (Banja Luka); M.S. Lenart Setinc (Ljubljana); Prof. Dr. Mario Plenkovic (Zagreb); M.S. Loius de la Ronciere (Paris); M.S. Aleksandar Todorovic (Montreaux); Prof. Dr. Slavo Kukic (Mostar), Prof.Dr. Miroljub Radojkovic (Beograd).