11. 12. 2008

GOVERNMENT DOES NOT WANT TO RELINQUISH INFLUENCE

Five million euros allocated to publicly owned media from the state budget again

Belgrade, December 11, 2008 (Danas) – Instead of privatizing or transforming media outlets owned by the state, the Republic of Serbia will finance five of them during the next year as well, spending around five million euros.

Although the need for publicly owned media outlets in a democratic society has been hotly debated for years, and regardless of the increasing pressure from the public to complete the privatization, the proposed budget for 2009 envisions the Ministry of Culture allocating 443 million dinars for public media outlets. This is half the amount expended within the budget for 2008, which totaled around 11 million euros. However, it should be noted that the biggest part of this amount was used for organization of Eurosong.

The item described as "subsidies to publicly owned non-financial companies and organizations" includes financing of the news agency Tanjug, which has the status of a public company, and Panorama, which publishes the newspaper Jedinstvo. It also includes SJU Jugoslovenski Pregled, Filmske Novosti and the transformation of Radio Jugoslavija, as well as the social program for employees. This item also allocates funds for the press council, which has not been established yet, the Roma Decade, media outlets in minority languages, media outlets for Kosovo Serbs and newspapers for disabled persons.

The director of the Center for Professionalization of the Media, Stevan Niksic, told Danas that the government obviously does not intend to privatize these media outlets, although it is necessary, nor to regulate their status in any other way, which is currently unclear. Niksic says that it is in the government's interest to own the news agency because Tanjug is a commercial enterprise, i.e. it reports not only on government institutions, but various other areas.

- Precisely for this reason, Tanjug must not be financed from the budget. However, the state owns other media outlets as well, like Politika and Vecernje Novosti, and the public does not know who its ownership partners are, says Niksic. He points out that the situation may change when the Parliament of Serbia adopts the Law on Transparency of Media Ownership, which is currently being prepared.

President of the Journalists' Association of Serbia, Nino Brajovic, is of a slightly different opinion. Brajovic told Danas that the state has an interest to have its own agency, but with a less than 50 percent ownership share. He added that the existence of the state news agency is regulated by Law on Information.

- Everybody who wants to privatize Tanjug has their own interest. It should be noted that the price of news services would significantly increase in the absence of this agency. Such development would have a large influence on many media outlets who rely on agency sources, says Brajovic. He is convinced that the government should not finance Tanjug without consultations with competing media outlets. He also points out that Tanjug's hands are tied because it is not allowed to develop its commercial services, like for example a radio station.

- Still, I must add that not all Tanjug's news are commercial, and Serbia is only one of the countries that own a news agency, says Brajovic. In his opinion, Radio Jugoslavija should be closed, while Filmske Novosti should be transformed and continue their work because it possesses a large and significant film archive. Brajovic believes that it is necessary to prepare an analysis of this issue. Nedim Sejdinovic, from the Independent Journalists' Association of Vojvodina, told Danas that the decision to finance public media outlets from the budget again is a scandal, because it is necessary to privatize all the media, especially those outlets owned by the state. He adds that Tanjug has competition, like Beta and FoNet, who earn their revenue only in the market, "and it is widely known that the Serbian media market is not well regulated".

- I think Beta is a much better agency and of a much higher quality than Tanjug, but it is not as privileged as the national agency, says Sejdinovic.

Professor of the Faculty of Political Science, Rade Veljanovski, told Danas that Serbian government currently does not have strength to solve the problem of publicly owned media, "with one of the reasons being the pressure from the people from these outlets. It is not easy to tell them that they are going to lose their jobs".

- Perhaps these media outlets should be merged with another, bigger outlet, but in a viable manner. In this way, budget expenses, which are partially unjustified, would decrease. Still, I am aware that it is necessary to be responsible in dealing with this issue, especially since it could result in closure of some media outlets, which are remnants of the past. This issue should be solved because they cannot survive any longer, like they did during the socialism, especially because their role has changed, explains Veljanovski.

Models are being made, but practice lags behind

During the mandate of the previous minister, Vojislav Brajovic, the Ministry of Culture had presented models which could be used to transform public companies in the information field and cultural institutions established by former Yugoslavia or the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. It was pointed out, at the meeting of the parliamentary Committee for Culture and Information, that "in the following period" it is necessary to solve the status of the news agency Tanjug, Filmske Novosti, Radio Jugoslavija and Jugoslovenski Pregled, as well as the Archive of Serbia and Montenegro, the Museum of History of Jugoslavija, and the Aviation Museum. The then assistant minister of culture for the media, Dragan Janjic, points out that the Ministry has made models for the beginning of talks about their transformation, with the aim to provide realization of public interest in the area of information, full freedom of action, and to decrease budget costs for the media, which are too big at the moment.