On the Media; Part 2; [1996-12-08--excerpt], Press Control in the Balkans

Well, I think I think that that this is a critical issue, we're not taking sides here. I met with the opposition leaders and they asked me to march with them and I said thank you, but no thank you. I am here to represent the right of the free press, but not to take any political side. And I would be weakening both myself and and and the position of the Committee to Protect Journalists if I took a political position here. What we what we stand for is the right of reporters to do their work without fear. I think it's very important that that Serbia join in the democratic movement that has that has swept Eastern and Central Europe since 1989. Serbia is basically the last holdout. And Milosevic is really. Yes. Yesterday's man, he's he's he's out of touch and isolated and he's maintained this this very tight grip on on his people by maintaining a tight grip on the media. And you can't you can't pretend as he pretends that he's on the road to democratization while while controlling your media and looks good.

I could certainly go ahead. Roy Gutman here. I caught you. Hello, how are you? Greetings. Just to ask you from your long talk with Milosevic, do you get a sense that he knows what he's going to do next? I mean, he's now using still the hard line. He's eased up just a little bit. But is he playing for the long haul or does he have is it just tactics? Where does he where is he going? Well, Roy, you know you know the man as well as anyone. You know that he's a very cunning poker player and doesn't give much away. I quite honestly feel that he was he was surprised by the extent of these demonstrations and by their duration. It's been 18, 19 days now, and there's no sign that they're going away. And and, in fact, they're growing tonight. In another important urban center, Neith, there were as many as many demonstrators out as in the streets of Belgrade. So it's I think it's a growing movement. And I think that he's he's being quite cunning and not reacting to it. I think he thinks that he can ride it out as he

as he has ridden out so many other things. But on the other hand, I think this is quite a new situation. And and I think, frankly, he's making it up as he goes along. He is he is very isolated. He's living now no longer in the city of Belgrade, but but sort of on a hilltop in and Titos old villa, which is where he received me yesterday. And and you get a sense of a man who is really cut off from his people. And that's that's a very dangerous position for for for a ruler. Godi Martin, thank you so much for joining us. I won't keep you. I know you've got to get back, but I really thank you for coming to the phone and and we enjoyed listening to you. Well, thank you very much, Alex, and thank you for all my colleagues as well. OK, it's a long fight. I want to get our listeners in on this conversation as well. Dennis in Riverton, Utah, you're on the air. Yes, I've been following the conversation. It's a very nice show today. I want to thank you for the show.

First of all, surely. Thank you. And quick observation or and or question. It seems almost that this this radio station is is the equivalent of talk radio in America, that it kind of has been some fresh air into what is kind of a stodgy, established kind of media. Well, let me let's ask Sosha Milkovich. You know, how would you how would you how do you respond to that comparison, Sasha? I think that I think that if I'm talking about American standards and typical stations there, I think I could compare it with, you know, with the kind of quality radio station, you know, with a lot of info program. We are having good news every hour. We are having about three or four hours per day. You know, special kind of infant shows, you know, which means giving an interview of the day in which you are giving politicians giving context to each

other, you know, listeners. And so, you know, with a lot of music. But this kind of independent music, you know. Well, you know, there was there was an article in The New York Times today that goes right along with what Dennis in Riverton, Utah, was talking about, the idea that the that being able to use the Internet is a vehicle for getting beyond the restrictions that the government put on when the transmitter was silenced. What what did you do, you know, we were having on the Internet, you know, the latest information that we got in our, you know, station and we put it we have, you know, native speaker from Great Britain here, and she's the wife of our journalist. And she was, you know, you know, recording this news in English and also we have in Serbia and, you know, for the people who live here in Serbia and also in the world, you know, access to the Internet. And it's also interesting, you know, that we are you know, we continue

to do that, you know, because we think that, you know, there is a lot of interest for that. And I can tell you that we are also providing 14 to be 92 was the first provider legal provider after the Dayton agreement. Well, Paul, what have you been using the Internet to to aid in your own reporting inside Serbia? I have to say this about the traditional pistoles baffled by new technology. But the Internet is one of the very impressive things which by 92 is doing. It's just a very good radio station. This is half the staff are young, they're smart. The news is very well delivered. The production values are good. And it doesn't surprise me at all that they began using the Internet. And if more people can can get access to be 92, even outside of Serbia, then I think that's all to the good. Roy Gutman, have you been watching it that way? You know, I just have been looking for their Internet address for the last few days. And today it was published in The Times. So I plan to connect up. But I wanted to ask one more question, which is to what extent?

And maybe one of your listeners is asking the thinking the same question. To what extent has the have the demonstrations turned on the issue of a free media? To what extent is that the issue now or is it only a side issue for them? If I could pull in this come in here, it has for the people on the streets been a very important issue. We saw Archie, the main television station, being bombarded night after night by protesters throwing eggs. They accuse the station of, first of all, censored coverage, then biased coverage. I think both charges were inaccurate. We've seen a number of stunts. We've seen state newspapers and newspapers being shoved back through the door by people who are really very angry at what I think on any normal journalistic standards is an absolute disgrace. We had some of the examples earlier of headlines. I remember the night of the biggest demonstration. It may have been as many as 200000 people. State television made no mention of it. The story was the visit of a youth delegation from Greece to see Mr. Milosevic.

That's been the tone. I think people are rightly angry about that. Well, Paul, what about the what about the peer pressure among journalists who work for these institutions? Does that? Well, I happen to have had a very interesting conversation with the owner of Becci, which is Bogalusa Courage and our factory, supposedly independent. But up until a few days ago when he resigned, the information minister was also director of programs and the was saying that his own journalists were tearing their hair out. They wanted to get out and cover these demonstrations. But he said that quite simply as a commercial decision, if he did that, he would lose his bank, would lose his factories. That's the kind of country that Serbia is. He felt that running his station along normal Western lines, something he said he might quite like to do, would be a commercially disastrous decision. So I think that even within the state organs and the so-called independent media, which really isn't that independence, a lot of frustrated journalists. Dennis and Riverton, Utah, thank you very much for your call. Interesting. Elizabeth in New York City, you're on the air.

Hi. I have a question. I have a question that we keep hearing and speaking about Serbia, that Yugoslavia consists of Serbia and Montenegro in Montenegro in any way supporting these demonstrators and students. Of course, it wasn't fair elections. I know. Are they completely staying out of Hollywood? How would you sort of analyze the way the other parts of the Yugoslav, what used to be Yugoslavia are dealing with? This is just Montenegro, along with Serbia in what's left of the federation have been anti-government demonstrations in Montenegro. But far more interesting, we had a statement from the Montenegrin government. Remember, this is a socialist administration, supposedly part of the same power structure, decrying what they said was a totalitarian annulment of the elections. I think things are pretty serious when your own comrades over the border issue that kind of statement and the Montenegrins have their own agenda.

They want to privatize much more aggressively than Serbia. Somebody like them wants to a rich man's mistress who makes a fuss, but only in order to get a better mink coat. There's an element of that, but also, I think, an element of rather serious criticism of President Milosevic by people who he thinks perhaps ought to be supporting him at this point. Elizabeth, thank you for your call. Roy Gutman, how would you compare the, you know, the coverage or the, I should say, the sort of tradition and practice of press freedom in the other as well in what used to be Yugoslavia, I mean, Croatia, Bosnia and so forth? Well, today, the freest press of all is in Slovenia, and it's also the most stable republic and the most stable press. There's no war. There's no threats and there's the makings of a market economy there as you move eastward, Croatia has the beginnings of a market economy, but basically an almost totalitarian control of the press by the government. In fact, they had a demonstration just a few weeks ago when their radio station was put off the air by President Turgeman

in Bosnia. There's a different picture in different parts, I think in Sarajevo. The newspaper Oslo, Virginia, has maintained its independence even in the worst of the siege, although there was always some self-censorship and state television was never really an organ of the state as such, although it was influenced by the ruling party, it was never anywhere near so bad as Belgrade television in the Serb part of Bosnia. There's also a very bad picture. There's a few signs of independent media, but they are under tremendous pressure. And for the most part, it's the state media, just like in Serbia, who are pushing the propaganda line. And, you know, the writing is so dull and the broadcasts are so stodgy, I don't know who listens to it, but in fact, it is still the main source of media. So those are in. Now, there's one other part of you of the former Yugoslavia, which is Macedonia. And I think they have a relatively free press there.

But it's a small place and there's not really an awful lot of there are some controversies going on there. And I think that the media there has not been charged with with distorting it. So it makes it I think probably of all those places, Serbia is is the very worst. Croatia is probably a close second. Our number is one 800 three, four, three, three, three, four two. That's one 800 three, four, three, three, three, four, two. This is on the media from National Public Radio. I'm Alex Jones. We're back with all the media talking about press control in the Balkans,

particularly in Serbia. Roy Gutman is my guest, Pulitzer Prize winning foreign affairs reporter for Newsday. Also Sasha Milkovich, director of Beat On to Radio Silence last week. Now back on the air in Belgrade, Serbia, and Paul Wood, reporter for the BBC, also based in Belgrade. Sasha Milkovich, one of the things that is not said very often is the role of the media in Serbia for, you know, sort of inflaming Serbia with a nationalistic fervor and and all of the kind of of of attitudes that prompted the war in Bosnia. How do you feel about the media's role in that? I could tell you, I think that, you know, probably you heard already many times this sentence. But, you know, we're in the territory of former Yugoslavia was first started by journalists, you know, and that, you know, they were, you know, inflaming it, you know, and when exactly started, you know, in the territory, for me, it was Slavia it was supported by by journalists. And also, you know, in this moment, you have,

you know, different kinds of situation because state run TV is, you know, having different kind of editorial policy. And only a few number of media here, especially I could talk about electronic independent media. They were having the same kind of editorial policy of foreign policy. But the problem is that, you know, we were, you know, offended by the all these years from the state run media. He's a traitor. There's mercenaries, you know, as the Serbs. And you have varieties of vocabulary, you know, and also I think I want to stress, you know, is that what's interesting? When we started with them to establish the 1993 Association of Independent Electronic Media here in Serbia and Montenegro, we had the seven members in this moment. We have all the three members. And that's in brief, you know, the exact situation.

All other stations were taken over by the government in the meantime or were closed on the except. The last example is what happened with Radio 93 in positive, a positive message sound, which is about 50 miles from Belgrade, but well known as the birthplace of Mr. Milosevic and his wife, Miss Markovitch, their son still living there. And these stations were closed down exactly the same. They were 392, was cut of the air and been added to these again on the air. But boom, 93 is, you know, still closed down. Yeah. So we are now continue to fight for that radio station because you could imagine how is the importance of that kind of radio station in, you know, area around Belgrade. I understand. Chris in Amherst, Massachusetts, you're on the air. Hi. Thank you. First, I'd like to say that I really admire the people who are struggling with the independent media in former Yugoslavia, especially in Serbia. I think the very courageous given given the

given the way media played a part in the war is there. But I just want to ask a question about foreign journalists who have been covering this event and whether or not, given the extent of the state apparatus and the centralization of its control with foreign journalists are having a difficult time covering this. And, you know, whether any of their activities in Serbia are constrained or limited or how they feel they're being received. Let me get Paul. Paul would respond to that. Thank you, Paul. You have difficulty in getting visas to come here. Hello. I am sorry. I can't hear you. Yeah, a few foreign journalists have had difficulties in obtaining visas to come here to cover the the latest demonstrations. Quite simply, this is a police state. The telephone lines from my office. I listen to people visit my house to ask the babysitter what I'm up to. They keep an eye on you.

It's very unpleasant, but that's the way things are here. I think if they wanted to get serious about it, they could make life pretty difficult. But we're not interfered with. The main problem is that there is an old what I would call communist mentality in the government. That is, when we want you to know something, we'll tell you so that even when you trying to get balance, you try to get the government side of it, you ring up. It may even be a story that's is good for them. They don't want to know. They put the phone down, they don't return the call. They come out with ridiculous statements that they have no idea of how to deal with the independent media, the foreign media, with any kind of media at all, apart from. Oh, yes. Which simply reads that government communiques on the air. Hmm. Paul, let me add one thing. It's Roy Gutman. I was there twenty years ago as a Reuters correspondent, and I hate to malign the. I mean, just authorities so much, they were very good in those days, they were gifted, in fact, they answered the phone, they provided interviews, they knew that their reputation internationally mattered. And now Milosevich seems to be willing to throw that away completely. So it's it's hard to say that just with the communists.

So I have to say I think you're right, Roy. I think until you know, until fairly recently the the you know, Yugoslavia was perceived to be something quite special in the east. And it's really quite a remarkable, remarkable for the freedoms that it that it had relative to to a lot of other places. But I think, of course, that's sort of been in shambles for some time now. Chris, thank you very much for your call. Yes, right, Alex. It raises another question in my mind. To what extent are people there discussing how Serbia, how Yugoslavia got to where it is? I mean, the war in Bosnia, the terrible the travesties and atrocities there? Is this getting discussed in by the opposition, some of whom themselves are nationalists or in the Dutch free media as as you have there? Paul, would how would you respond to that? I think ordinary people have had enough of the war making a living as hard enough people and on average, 100 dollars a month. There is a certain rewriting of history. If you listen to figures like Vuk Draskovic, one of the opposition leaders, you listen to him. He was always against the war.

He was always for Dayton. People remember a rather different vote, Draskovic said the beginning of the war, something of a nationalist. And many people believe he's still a nationalist at heart. This is one of the problems with the coalition includes the passage. Good liberal credentials always was against the war, but also Mr. Draskovic, also Zoran Janjic, whose Democratic Party is quite closely allied to the Democratic Party of Radovan Karadzic on a planning stage over in Bosnia. He went to support their election campaign. So as ever, in the Balkans, there's no simple good guys and bad guys, no black and white. It's all shades of gray. And I think people can support the call for local election results to be reinstated. But what the opposition might get up to in power is quite another matter. Howard, let me ask you one final question. We've got about 30 seconds. But if the American media, if the international media, but the American media in particular, with its attention to the front page to this story in The New York Times and other places, if that did not happen, would this be happening in in Serbia, the way it is unfolding?

It would be happening, but that would not. I think the international pressure increasingly we've seen the White House and the State Department weighing in. I think that's a direct result of CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and that sort of condemnation is listened to by President Milosevic. That's the result of the international media coverage. And that's why the media are important in these kinds of situations. And that's why we take pains on this show to try to give attention when the media does and doesn't do that kind of thing because it does matter. I want to thank my guests. I'm sorry to say we're out of time. Roy Gutman, thank you very much for being with us. Pulitzer Prize winning foreign affairs reporter for Newsday, Sascha Milkovich, director of BE 92 Radio in Belgrade, Serbia. Paul Wood, reporter for the BBC in Belgrade. And we were joined earlier by Kati Marton, chairman of the Committee to Protect Journalists and host of NPR's America in the World. The producer for On the Media is Judith Hepburn Blank with associate producer Jennifer Nix and assistant producer Kavita Menon. Production assistant Devor Clar. Our technical director is George Edwards with audio engineer Paul Ruiz. And we had additional help this week from Gary Henderson.

We'd like to hear from those of you who didn't get on the air if you have questions or comments about on the media. Send us a note. Our address is on the media. WNYC won Center Street, New York, New York one triple 07. That's one Center Street, New York, New York one triple 07. Today, I'm sorry to say, we're losing a member of the on the media team who's made a great contribution to this program. Assistant producer Kavita Menon is departing for India, where her parents are originally from. I'm glad to say that she will be working as a journalist there and we wish her very well, but we will all truly miss her. I'm Alex Jones and. If you have questions or comments about on the media, call one 800 three, four, three three three four two. Funding for on the media is provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Edith and Henry Everett Foundation and the WNYC Foundation. This program is a production of WNYC New York Public Radio

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