IPS-English BALKANS: Media Bowing Under Pressure Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:22:00 -0700 BALKANS: Media Bowing Under Pressure Vesna Peric Zimonjic BELGRADE, Aug 30 (IPS) - The ways of Serbian media have come into focus again after the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) declared earlier this week that Serbian media must practise professionalism and respect human dignity. The OSCE is an international organisation for security, with the task of early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation. It has 55 member states from Europe, the Mediterranean, The Caucasus, Central Asia and North America. Its headquarters are in Vienna, Austria. The warning came after a number of tabloids published gruesome photographs of the dismembered body of a young man who fell into a bear cage at Belgrade Zoo. The man fell on way back from a music festival at the Kalemegdan fortress that houses the zoo. ”The photos gravely violate human dignity,” the OSCE said. It called on the media to apologise both to the grieving family and to the public. The Serbian Ministry of Culture said that ”the publishing of the photos scandalously violated fundamental moral norms, and exposed the victim to public humiliation.” It announced it would launch court proceedings against the tabloids. The tabloids offered no apology. ”The situation in the Serbian media is, to put it mildly, worrisome,” head of the Independent Association of Journalists in Serbia (NUNS) Nadezda Gace told IPS. ”Our media scene is deeply poisoned and divided.” NUNS and the research agency Strategic Marketing published a report 'Journalists on Journalism' earlier this month looking at the role and influence of media in Serbia. It was the first survey on journalism in more than two decades. About 1,000 of more than 6,000 Serbian journalists were surveyed, besides some 1,400 randomly selected members of the public. ”It has the aim of defining what could be done to improve journalism and its role in this society,” Gace said. Serbia turned towards democracy only seven years ago, after the fall of the regime of Slobodan Milosevic who had led the country into devastating inter-ethnic wars in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Prior to Milosevic's rule, it was a communist country for 45 years. The media played an important role in the 1990s, some of it openly opposing the wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo. Its role was also crucial in the period immediately preceding Milosevic's downfall in 2000. It was widely believed that media would continue to be a corrective factor. But the study showed a quite different story. Privatisation of media and the growing influence of new owners, whether foreign companies or local tycoons, has led to lesser press freedom, the study showed. More than 1,000 journalists were surveyed for the study, among a total of 6,148 listed in Serbia. Almost 95 percent of them said they felt censored. This is particularly the case, they said, when they report on financial abuse by politicians and tycoons, organised crime, and war criminals. The first reform-oriented prime minister of Serbia Zoran Djindjic was killed in 2003 by members of an organised crime group dating back to the era of Milosevic. Some of its members still own media outlets. As many as 84 percent of journalists said they felt they were ”not free”. Editors mostly lack courage, cannot define editorial policy under murky ownership circumstances, and often introduce self-censorship into work, journalists said. Only 12 percent saw journalism as ”objective”, 41 percent dubbed it as ”corrupt”, while only 15 percent viewed it as investigative or critical. Yet, the study says, journalists still see the profession as responsible, interesting and creative, even if it is stressful and low paying. The average income of journalists is around 300 dollars a month, when average monthly income across the country has reached 450 dollars. ”Journalists are afraid of losing their jobs in uncertain times, so they bow to pressures,” head of Strategic Marketing agency Srdjan Bogosavljevic told IPS. ”They know that media are easily closed now.” The study also included views of public, which ranked journalism as the least wanted profession for their children (only four percent). This was because the public mostly views journalists as ”close to people in power” (56 percent) or ”corrupt” (39 percent). ”The most astonishing finding was that journalists do not want their children ever to enter this line of work,” Gace said. ”The findings of the study are a reflection of the situation in Serbia,” the daily Danas commented. ”Journalists live and work in Serbia; they do not have any supernatural characteristics. Being commercial enterprises now, media outlets share the fate of all -- be it in regard to money, human resources, or technical equipment.” In neighbouring Croatia or Bosnia, journalists' associations speak of similar problems. The recent Declaration of Association of Journalists of Croatia could have been written in any country in the region. ”It's hard to be the 'consciousness of society' in Croatia,” said the Declaration. ”Professionalism among journalists has been replaced by political obedience...Lives and existence of journalists today are in danger if they do not belong to the 'socially acceptable' lobbies... Journalists and journalism are being completely compromised as they become the service of politically powerful individuals, corrupt state bureaucracy and the new rich.” (END/IPS/EU/IP/IC/HD/UE/VZ/SS/07) = 08301355 ORP009 NNNN