At NUNS and Republika's discussion panel

What Journalists Do for Their Freedom

On the ruins of a state that does not even have a normal constitution or all the necessary laws, Serbian journalism is largely disoriented, while journalists live an insecure existence. The decent and ambitious in Serbian journalism are often exposed to pressures, threats and defamation.
NUNS president Nadezda Gace talked about this situation, wondering if journalists are able to restore reputation of the profession mistrusted by citizens, and which is ranked right behind politicians by its lack of credibility. But monitoring conducted by NUNS-a and the Media Center showed that journalistic profession itself is on shaky legs. It is not only susceptible to bribery and corruption ("I did not accept bribe, but someone else did"), but it also promotes language of hatred.

Dragos Ivanovic (Republika) commended NUNS, its president Nadezda Gace and previous assemblies "for defending us energetically all these years from bullies among those in power, politicians, tycoons and mafia". He commented that the situation was getting worse and said he believed that self-organization of the media should be built on as wide a base as possible. Ivanovic thought that NUNS did correctly to have refused to participate at a discussion panel organized by the OSCE, together with UNS (Union of Journalists of Serbia) representatives and chief editor of Politika daily. It was high time to end false tolerance and stop sitting at the same table with those who did not disassociate themselves from support to Slobodan Milosevic's war policy, while they hands were very deep in it, he said. "Our profession has always been degraded when its representatives refused to own up to their own responsibility for dishonest cooperation, for trampling on truth and principles of the profession", Ivanovic said.

Generations of journalists were bred not to speak about the murky past, to avoid confrontation with the past at any cost, even if it involved moral consequences. Is our job not to change that too, by dialogue, not by imposing? We can either opt for dialogue or continue with humiliating submission to the regime. And we
		Politika, beside indubitable journalistic achievements, also has had difficult moral heritage of compromising cooperation with the regime. This applies for the period before both World Wars, during the times of socialism and Slobodan Milosevic and now in the so-called democratic period.

have to recognize this when we talk about defending our freedom, Ivanovic said.

Dragan Janjic, deputy minister of culture and information, participated in the discussion. He answered the NUNS president's question as to why privatization of the media was suspended for 180 days. He said that the print media were practically privatized, with exception of Politika AD, in which the state owns 70 percents of capital.
When Janic suggested that without a liberal market and competition there is no free media, and that freedom starts with the possibility to make a profit, Nebojsa Janjic (Republika) retorted, asking what kind of market lacks a proper constitutional framework: does it mean that only those making a profit can be free.

Those who support ultranationalist and liberal options have the right to speak their mind, too, Janjic said. Nebojsa Popov rebutted: "They did not stop at thinking, they were killing people for years. What Socialist Party of Serbia and Serbian Radical Party did, had nothing to do with opinion - it was practice. I will not leave Tadic alone either, because he replied to a comment about conniving at Srebrenica massacre that those who spoke so were expressing their academic freedom. This defines our situation", Popov said. There are ideas and ideologies that merged ideally with practice, which means there are ideas, ideologies and politicians that confirmed them with their words and acts, by robbing and killing. Those who fail to see it use the norm of equidistance as a facade that enables them not only to be "objective" but also to be enlisted into the ideological machine of those who committed crimes and robbery.
The vital thing is, Popov said, that some 3,000 journalists on NUNS's list have still refused to participate in propagation of crime and robbery.

Dejan Anastasijevic (Vreme) believes that the freedom issue is not of primary importance.
We do not have a law on print, for instance, which would put many things in place. It is illogical that I am criminally liable for libel according to one law, but I am at the same time covered by the Public Information Law, which means I am in a twofold danger, Anastasijevic said.
Djordje Vlajic (BBC) said there are journalists who fight for freedom and those who do not want to. The media system is unregulated, laws allow for arbitrariness of different groups

and authorities, just as the constitution allows anyone to hold a share in the media, including the state. Politicians are trying to do anything that prevents having a stable society and there lies the difference between Serbia and a democracy: we have politicians, but not the statesmen, Djordje Vlajic said. Nadezda Gace said she would discuss protection of union and workers' right with Independence trade union. Talking about unresolved murders, NUNS required of the president of the state that the National Security Council should discuss journalists' safety, but failed to see results. When NUNS asked about the murder of journalist Milan Pantic, Jagodina police told them not to meddle with the investigation. Olivija Rusovac said she believed that role of the market in journalist's freedom should not be overrated, because it depends on their
		Two spoons

knowledge, courage and refusal to be bribed. Expecting the laws to answer the question whether journalists want to be free is slightly embarrassing. Just the way it is shaming that we need to wait for a law to be able to fight fascism. There are not only brutal pressures on journalists, but also the subtle ones, and paradigm of those pressures is the case with Ekomonist's editors, who had to withdraw "due to changes in the management's policy".
Danijela Segan (Studio B) said she was a big pessimist as regards improvement in Serbian journalism. The intertwining of politics and journalism is shocking, and it is amazing how we concede to all that, fearing radicals, and even accept the agreement with the SPS and Dragan Markovic Palma, she concluded. According to Lidija Jovetic (Republika), journalists are increasingly willing to flee from freedom, to obey politicians and bow to media owners - the private ones or those owned by the municipality/town. She believes that Studio B is an honorable example because it fights to remain a city TV, without being owned by the City Council. Nastasja Radovic (Republika) said that flaws in legislation never created room for the media to become independent and self-standing, but that journalists themselves are not interested enough to handle relations between the media owners and politicians, where journalists are usually a paid hand.
Zlatoje Martinov (Republika) said that undefined laws are a double-edged sword. This is supported by the example of Pancevac daily, which split into two offices. The fraction that set up their office to avoid being owned faced a fiasco, because they tried to copy the old Pancevac in order to ensure their success. The second part of the office that agreed to being bought by a dairyman whose motto was "I'll have the oldest paper in the Balkans" continued to live as a successful paper.
Message sent from the panel was that non-free journalism degrades the profession and that legislation will not be good if it is based on a bad constitution.

	Olivija Rusovac