27. 09. 2004

Conference on media politics

BELGRADE, September 27, 2004 (Beta) – An international conference “Media, Politics in Serbia – Goals, Obstacles, Expectations,” has been held at Belgrade’s Intercontinental Hotel. The conference focused on media and the process of integration with the European Union, as well as the effectiveness of media politics in South-East Europe. The conference was staged by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Political Sciences Faculty of Belgrade University, with the participation of a number of experts from European countries. The gathering reached the conclusion that the democratic changes in 2000 had not initiated any considerable change in media politics in Serbia. At the last panel session of the conference, the participants found that no single genuine media outlet had been established in the past four years that the print media had moved more and more towards tabloid journalism, that no public service media existed and that no public strategy had been established to regulate the sphere. Weekly NIN journalist Stevan Niksic told the conference that certain media proprietors belonged to the criminal establishment. “Political content and articles on political friction dominate these very powerful media. They are usually written by journalists using synonyms citing unreliable sources. This only supports the ongoing process of transforming newspapers into tabloids,” he said. Dusan Reljic, of Germany’s Science and Politics Foundation, said that the partnership of crime and state violence is still alive in Serbia. This, he said, originated under communism and flourished during the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, but was also encouraged by the lack of any public reaction which should have identified it. The editor of weekly news magazine Vreme, Dragoljub Zarkovic, noted that the situation in the media could not be observed in isolation from the general social milieu. He emphasised that the complete lack of public criticism is a crucial factor in the present situation of the media, adding that they had become obsequious to the social elite. Snezana Milivojevic, of the Belgrade University Faculty of Political Sciences, said that, apart from the eccentricities of certain countries, the similarity of media politics coordination among the countries of South-East Europe were astonishing. Within this context, said Milivojevic, she supported a comparative exploration of the role of the media in the democratisation of South-East Europe, together with the establishment of standards which would be adopted as standards of public service.