Realizing press freedom by enabling a pluralistic public debate in the wider context of freedom of expression is one of the strategic priorities for BiH as a potential candidate country for EU membership.
The EU is committed to providing support to BiH in finding concrete solutions for freedom of expression along its European path. Such support was expressed through the organization in June of the conference SPEAK UP 2 for representatives from the media, NGOs and governments in the Enlargement region. The conference emphasized that all in authority and also election candidates need to address these issues so that press freedom in BiH is guaranteed. It is also expected that, based on the new approach in Enlargement methodology of opening first in the accession process the chapters on judiciary and fundamental rights (Chapter 23) and justice, freedom and security (Chapter 24) concrete action plans will be created.
In order to ensure that the media are able to work effectively and freely, BiH has to carry out a series of changes that are also part of the accession process. The conference in June agreed a number of conclusions that can act as a guide for the changes that BiH need to implement. The conclusions can be seen here.
The media play a vital role in helping to generate social development. Indeed, it is key that all of us take responsibility for achieving the right conditions to ensure that the public is not exposed to manipulation and media follow ethical and professional standards. In this edition, journalists Suzana Radjen–Todoric and Predrag Zvijerac as well as President of the BiH Helsinki Committee for Human Rights Srdjan Dizdarevic offer us their opinion about press freedom in BiH.
Suzana Radjen – Todoric, BNTV journalist and editor
Media freedom is directly related to the level of democratisation in society. An independent and free media cannot exist in undemocratic societies. Equally, democratization is impossible without media freedom. The fact that BiH is an undemocratic and deeply divided society is also reflected in the media. I am concerned that there have been no significant changes when it comes to press freedom. By all accounts, the situation is actually deteriorating, which best illustrates how far behind BiH is from European and democratic standards. With certain honourable exceptions, speaking about an independent media is an illusory thought today. The low level of democracy and the current economic misery in our society has produced a media dependent on various political and economic ‘power centres’, which unfortunately has even become socially acceptable. In fact, faced with open and public political and economic pressures, the media is ‘on track’ to completely lose their independence and freedom.
To all of this, we must also add the legacy of the past when the media and journalists were treated as a socio-political workers and this resulted in a very low level of social and professional awareness of the importance of a free media. Unfortunately, very little is being done to improve the situation. In front of us is a very laborious task if we want to see any progress made. However, we all equally share responsibility for this situation – society as a whole, as well as journalists. We cannot expect that someone else will come and give us professional freedom. We have to achieve it by the professional approach we take to our work. At the same time, it is necessary to create greater public awareness on all these issues, and to speak out publicly about pressures being exerted against the media. In any democratic society, any attack or any pressure on journalists and the media is unacceptable. Yet only here, in BiH, is such behavior tolerated and accepted as being ‘normal’.
Srdjan Dizdarevic, President of the BiH Helsinki Committee for Human Rights
An independent and professional media has enormous significance for a transitional society such as BiH. They are important for the strengthening of democratic relations, for affirming freedom of expression and the promotion of human rights. The situation here is that the media are not only in the hands of ‘political power centres’ but increasingly also in the hands of economic and financial lobbies that are managed in a way that does not correspond to the expectations of a democratic society. Governing circles, instead of implementing the reforms and attracting investment, care more about how to control the media, the police, the courts, and the banks, so that the media becomes one of the most important power levers in the country. Long ago, the international community gave up on the media in BiH so that everything is left to locals in power. We need to hope that the current efforts by citizens to make changes in society, as manifested through events that put politicians under pressure to adopt a law on ID number, will result in the creation of a better and more democratic atmosphere for the media.
Predrag Zvijerac, Dnevni list journalist
The media in BiH, whether private or public, is weak, unprofessional, bribed and dependent on the political and commercial power centres. All of this serves only to bring about a greater level of public distrust, bias and other serious problems in establishing modern and democratic services to citizens. Today in BiH, it is hard to find a journalist who is satisfied with her or his job, although all of them say they would like to or want to resist external pressures and to objectively report the news. Parallel political and financial pressures are the main problems that all media professionals face. At the same time, all media outlets have a narrow, limited and fragmented market that also dictates distorted political system so that we have a media that is clearly divided along political and/or ethnic lines, where each political party or constituent people has its own medium. Public broadcasters – the three TV stations of which only BHRT covers the whole of BiH – are under the direct political control of the respective governing parties at higher levels, while the local public media is under the control of the local authorities. The private media, which are (in)directly owned by the political parties, are both politically and economically dependent on certain political parties. So it is clear which media supports which political party. Since the media “lives” from the revenue gained from advertising, we see the daily cancellation of marketing agreements and the subscription of public and private institutions if a media outlet “dares” to criticize the preferred political party of the institution or company in question. In terms of EU support to the media in BiH, we do not see any pressure being put on the government to introduce international and European standards in public service. Financial aid to (independent) media is virtually meaningless, and even less training, education, or specialist courses for journalists are being organized. Everything usually ends up with roundtables and conferences that point out the already well-known problems, offering some recommendations, but without changing the situation.
