The third of May is celebrated all over the planet, including in our country: journalists paid special attention to the freedom of the media, and the Association of Journalists of Bosnia and Herzegovina presented its research this year, the results of which are, let's say, encouraging because they show that the citizens of this country trust the media more and more, that they consider attacks on journalists unacceptable, and they see politicians as the main violators of media freedom. The latter is a great truth that actually speaks the most about the state of the media today and here: the attitude of politicians towards journalists was also a key item in this year's awarding of journalistic awards, which was organized in Brčko by the Association of Journalists of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I myself am among the awardees - thanks to my colleagues! - because of the text whose title illustrates this story quite illustratively - "Who am I to think about Zlatko?".
Fortunately for journalists, Zlatko is a political past, so you should focus on the present. Slobodan Vasković, blogger from Banja Luka, long-time journalist, is exposed to serious death threats every now and then, and his family is not spared insults and pressures either. Vasković is also in serious trouble during these journalistic holiday days: like thousands of Banja Luka residents, he expressed solidarity with the tragedy of the Dragičević family and intensively reports on numerous failures in the investigation. But Vasković has a big problem, because it has been no secret for years that he is extremely well informed and that his blogs are actually one step ahead, which is why he has become the biggest threat to those who try to hide police failures and the reasons for them. BNTV is in similar problems: the regime of Milorad Dodik and the president of RS himself deny this television the right to work, not to mention all the insults, curses and threats that the owner of this television, Vlado Trišić, the editor-in-chief Suzana Rađen Todorić, certainly one of the most famous TV personalities in this country and a journalist whose long-term career is accompanied by exceptional professionalism and credibility, but also by their colleagues who are banned from entering the institutions of the RS every now and then. The regime is not satisfied with the reporting!
Paradoxically, but true: that same regime never had (many) objections to the work of the media owned by the late Željko Kopanja, who did not even hide his long-standing friendship with Milorad Dodik, yet the RS police never completed the investigation and brought the assassins to court Kopanje, who lost both legs in a car explosion in the fall of 1999. Less than two years ago, Željko Kopanja died without waiting for his attackers to face their own sins. However, that Milorad Dodik is not the only one to blame for everything, is shown by numerous examples from the Federation where, in truth, there were no such drastic consequences of attacks, but there were also bombs being thrown in front of newsrooms and death threats and (political) persecution of all kinds. Perhaps it would be most correct to say that Dodik is the most exposed example of political arrogance towards journalists, and I dare to say that it often seems to me that his fellow politicians envy him for saying his views out loud while the others do so in a more convoluted manner. In gloves, resorting to all kinds of economic pressures and inflation of their own media (in Sarajevo it's called posturing), federal politicians fight their mutual battles, as well as those intended for everyone else and different. In practice, these are attacks like the one experienced by colleague Adisa Imamović from N1 or the insults that Sanela Prašović and Arijana Saračević received.
So-called citizen journalism, the presence of people on social networks for the (mis)use of which they have perfected, is also in their hands. One of perhaps the most egregious examples of abuse is a certain Josip Šimić, who I'm really not even sure is his name, a bizarre phenomenon in the local media sky who has been used for months, not to mention a year and a half, by various interest groups to deal with domestic prosecutors. His most famous target is Sarajevo's chief prosecutor Dalida Burzić (who filed charges against the assailant of his colleague Avda Avdić), but when his appetites grew - and whether it was his own, or some of his instructors, it is difficult to say - he is allegedly under full immorality. and with every other irresponsibility, I decided to scatter forged documents with which he affixed the label strictly pov. wiretapped conversations! It's the kind of spicy reading that has always been successful (at the beginning of my journalistic career, that is long before the war, a colleague from Sarajevo's ASA exclusively reported for two and a half years, referring to secret telephone conversations, that Lepa Brena was pregnant). This unfortunate person of today, to whom no media outlet would give him a cent of his fee, let alone a job, looked for tidbits in the Catholic Church, political parties and finally settled down in fictional telephone stories in which the main characters are women in the judiciary. The scandal that was caused by the alleged transcript of the telephone conversation between Acting Chief State Prosecutor Gordana Tadić and her call mate, Vice President of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council Ruzica Jukić, was quickly remedied by SIPA and the already mentioned prosecutor Burzić. Faster than the author of the transcripts could have hoped, the story got an investigative epilogue, and acting Tadić was sprinkled with ashes. It will be that she was not forgiven, because acting Tadić is again the central character in the newly designed transcript, which Dragan Mektić, Minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina and persistent fighter against inaction in the judiciary, resolutely denied. However, judging by the reactions, it seems that the chief prosecutor has realized that this latest attack is actually a pressure on her, which can at least be a small consolation, not to mention the hope that the local judiciary will also turn to its work, even in the conditions while ongoing (pre)election campaigns similar to these political ones.
But let's get back to journalism: what and who are quasi-journalists, various creators of today's popularly called fake news and similar bullshit? The answer, unfortunately, is very simple: politicians in the fight against journalism. Various shams come as a perfect weapon against our profession, which domestic politicians would prefer to eradicate and completely replace with their own PRs. That's the only way their dreams of lifelong rule, manipulation, and let's not forget the enormous benefits they provide for themselves and their cronies in power come true.
The lesson that we journalists can learn is also simple: mutual solidarity, persistence in the profession and professional standards is the only recipe not only to survive but also to preserve the honor of our own profession. And because of us, but also because of those who - according to research - still trust us much more than politicians.
(oslobodjene.ba)
Bonus video:
