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The letter portrayed a hapless independent magazine at the hands of a ruthless minister whose only aim was to undermine the magazine's credibility and reputation. As it was explained to me by the magazine's journalists, the event was good publicity. Score one for the independent press. Minus one for the already unpopular Minister.

Since I was the journalist who conducted the original interview in Engish, I cringed when I learned that the basis on which all of this fuss was made was a simple translation mistake. Read one way in the translated version, one could draw a conclusion that the publication was not legally registered.

The editor reacted to what he read as erroneous information in his own publication rather than in a letter to the magazine that published the interview. In my opinion, this served to amplify the event even more.

As a journalist, it's not in my blood to love and defend anybody spending the majority of their time in government offices but when a publication such as the one mentioned above uses such tactics to serve its own aims, I have to question its fairness and its responsibility to serve the public good. (I also have to question the translator's state of mind on the day he
transformed the text from English to Serbian but that's another story).

Most people told me the incident would blow over in a couple of days and apparently, it has. The independent press, however, still faces threats to its very existence and treats the act of publishing, itself, as a war against the forces in power. As we all know, life on the front line is ugly and it certainly isn't fair.

Those who support independent media should be aware of the basic survival problems they face. Editors of independent press complain about the price they pay for newsprint compared to the state-owned media. A lot of people worried when BK TV was prohibited by state Radio Television Serbia from broadcasting in the majority of the country. Others warned the same fate could await to print media. In this environment, it's no wonder that general paranoia can breed over statements on the independent media made by public officials

But unfortunately, everybody is so concerned with problems of their mere existence that nobody questions about whether the media in Yugoslavia, even the so-called "independent press" are really serving the public interest. Note: The state-media is no better and of course, a lot worse but since they are so far gone, I won't bother wasting any breath on them.

Those who do business with the independent media's marketing departments experience the media's economic problems. Professional news organizations (at least the ones that follow rules of western journalism) strive to separate news from advertisements and they refuse to accept gifts from their sources, even T-shirts. The better editors treat press releases merely as news leads, rather than publishable news or marketing material. This ensures the media's independence which leads to higher public trust, and hopefully, greater circulation.

However, in Yugoslavia (and in most countries without a western press tradition) the boundaries between what is news and what is an advertisement are not so clear cut. Imagine the shock one company had when it learned, for example, that a daily wanted 7,000 dinars (that's about 2,000 DM) to publish the company's press release as news on the second to last page, a week after the press conference had occurred.

The newspaper's marketing representative told the company that space was precious and revenues at the paper are low and the paper didn't have to publish the news at all. Phew! At least the newspaper got one thing right!

Knowing this, it appears that short-term revenue earnings from these practices are more important to the editor than establishing or maintaining the reputation as hard-hitting, independent and informative, making the term "independent" a complete misnomer.

Perhaps some would argue that a completely free and independent press is a luxury afforded to only media operating in countries such as the United States. Based on my experiences working with Western-managed newspapers in Budapest, Hungary, I can argue that it only boils down to the enforcement of democratic media values and a dedication to journalistic professionalism. Since Serbs like to tell me how open Yugoslavia was to the West before the war, I am always surprised that even with some amount of awareness, sleazy practices still continue, with the help of desperate P.R. people who are willing to buy their friends in the media. If Serbs are truly set on their country becoming democratic and market-oriented, can they create and assert news values on their own?

by Jennifer C. Brown    

To click here...            Talk back index...

Your previous talk back on the subject above:
I NEED YOUR HELP PLEASE? - CHUDON PLC CAMEROUN
Documentary about Belgrade - Vicky Miha
a question :) - sanja vucetic
Western press 'values'???? Ah Wha??? - Lawrence Shoup
News from Yugoslavia - Jan Marie Williams
To Jennifer part II... - Matt Hodges
To Jennifer... - Matt Hodges
sotto voce - andreja zivkovic (in hungarian - andris, in englis