Special TV Tuition

In the autumn of 1938, when he first saw a picture on a TV screen, the American essayists E.B. White said confidently: "We will have to live with television or else it will destroy us." Fifty years later, in the small and faraway land of Yugoslavia, his prediction is coming closest to its realization. Special Adviser to the Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic Mr Mihajlo Saranovic even announced: "The struggle for bread, let alone a newspaper, depicts the battle whose outcome will decide whether the sanctions against Yugoslavia will be lifted or not."

To everyone who knows that the Yugoslav Prime Minister's team sees the sanctions being lifted only as a result of the organization and holding of free democratic elections in the country, these words of Saranovic need no explanation. Nevertheless: "There will be no lifting of the sanctions without democratic elections and there can be no democratic elections without a free and democratic television", said Saranovic, repeating what his "boss" started to say as soon as he stepped onto Yugoslav soil.

"It is not a state, but a party television", complained one of Yugoslav President, Dobrica Cosic's advisers a few days after his "boss" felt on his own skin what it is like when TV Serbia takes things into its own hands and starts to "report".

As a reminder, during the recent visit of Cyrus Vance and David Owen to Belgrade, TV Serbia informed the Serb public like this: "Vance and Owen were with Milosevic, and then, on the way, saw Cosic as well". Well informed sources say that after this the President called his advisers and asked: "What's with the television?"

Long before Cosic, Prime Minister Panic got an answer, which explains to a large extent his desire for a quick democratization of the Serbian TV. Official data show just what the connection between the Prime Minister (and probably all the others, including Cosic and Milosevic) and the television. According to research carried out by the Institute for Political Studies, when he came to Yugoslavia (July 1992), and when TV Serbia thought well of him, which can be linked to the fact that Panic came on the invitation of SPS, he had the support of 77.3% of those questioned, while 5.6 were against him, and 16.5 undecided.

Only a few months later (October 1992), the results of the survey have changed drastically. Panic has the support of 60%, 17% are against him and 23% undecided.

Maybe some wouldn't connect these figures to the work of TV Serbia, but events, unfortunately, show differently. Namely, from the moment the campaign against him started in the Federal Parliament, the Prime Minister is almost non-stop on the screen, mainly in a negative light.

It began with reports from the Federal Parliament in which most time was given to those who relentlessly bombarded the Prime Minister, and it continued with the carefully chosen programs which followed any move made by Panic.

The cream on the cake was the program in which an emigrant, Mica (Michael) Radenkovic, talked about the PM, followed immediately after by the affair of Panic's interview with TV "Politika".

The program with Radenkovic was repeated, and this wasn't prevented even by a warning from the Federal Parliament that it was a case of "slander" - sanctioned by the law - or by the statement that Mr. Radenkovic provided no proof at all for what he said (and he said a lot, from Panic's being blackmailed by the American government and the CIA because he stole something, to his being a "good friend" of some "Ustasha"). As in September 1990, when the TV Belgrade of the time clashed with the Prime Minister of the time, Ante Markovic, after the showing of the "Radenkovic program" letters were exchanged between the Federal Parliament and the television, but unlike previously, this time letters (and comparatively strong ones) were exchanged by the Federal and Republican Ministers of Information.

The above mentioned Special Adviser to the Federal Prime Minister was bitter: "The state television gave time to an emigrant who presented himself as a businessman and then, because of the great interest of five or six viewers, repeated the same program lasting two and a half hours, which naturally costs an enormous amount of money. One has to ask oneself whether to encourage the public to watch such a television. I wouldn't."

Immediately after the Radenkovic case, TV "Politika" asked for an interview with Panic, Panic demanded that the interview also be shown on the state television, state television said it was "not interested", Panic gave in to being seen only on TV "Politika".

Belgrade viewers will probably be undecided for a long time as to whether the journalist who interviewed the Prime Minister was really unpleasant and rude, or whether he was just doing his job and asking what every Prime Minister should be asked ("I will ask you what you would be asked by your enemies", explained the journalist). Well informed sources say that immediately after the program Panic attacked the journalists fiercely, and this was followed by the official statement (once again Saranovic): "The Prime Minister's interviewer was aggressive and often didn't allow the Prime Minister to say what he thought".

This stand of the federal chiefs and the stories that followed were enough for TV Serbia to show interest in the interview and request it from TV "Politika". This was now opposed by the Federal Government, TV "Politika" refused to hand over the interview, and TV Serbia found a way by showing an excerpt of the interview from a pirate video cassette! TV "Politika" reacted with a statement (strangely enough condemning its own journalist), and it looks like the Federal Government has realized that it can do nothing else but to put the whole case ad acta.

All this would only be an interesting story about the conflicts of some of the political forces in Yugoslavia if it weren't for something else - the very real and enormous power of the media in all regions, including ours.

In asking a number of standard questions (who are the members of the Serbian government, who is fighting in Sarajevo...), the people from the Institute for Political Studies found out that 43.5% of the TV Serbia viewers

questioned knew very little, 48% knew something, and only 8.4% were well-informed.

Furthermore, when this is applied further afield, the following results are gained - in south eastern Serbia, voters who "take part in social and political life" with the help of the only television they watch (state), give the Socialist Party 41.7% of the vote in elections. At the same time, the "badly informed" make up 46.1% of the people, those who know something 45.6%, and the well-informed 8.3%.

When one adds to this the fact that 42.9% of the watchers of independent programs are well-informed and that these independent programs can only be followed in Belgrade, it is easy to see why television is the main reason why, for instance, DEPOS in Belgrade has a 28% vote, and in the above mentioned region of Serbia only 11% (a little more than the number of "well-informed").

The biggest percentage of those whose only information comes from the second (and other) news program on the state TV is to be found, respectively, among pensioners (81.2%), agriculturists (83.9), housewives (77.8) and unqualified and semi-qualified workers (83) - i.e. in exactly the same social categories as where SPS has its strongest support.

"We should give up on Television Serbia", an important official from President Cosic's cabinet told VREME's reporter, "in any case they will soon start killing each other there", and he then gave one of the many plans being considered at the moment "on the highest level".

According to him, the dead and scattered Yugoslav Radio-Television (JRT) should somehow be "resurrected" ("but we don't want another YUTEL"), in order to gain a legal basis on which to continue work and "incorporate" in all this, for example, Studio B.

In other words, the technical equipment which the Federal

Government has at its disposal (and the famous "military transmitter" once used by YUTEL), should be used so that the independent TV stations (probably TV "Politika" as well) could be watched all over Serbia.

Those in Panic's cabinet hold a similar opinion, only they think that a "resurrected" JRT would take too long. As far as we know, instead of this the Federal Government would try to win the battle over the frequencies recently taken over (unlawfully, according to them) by the Serbian Republican government. Along with this, it would try to give the independent TV stations technical assistance, and only after the elections would it undertake any larger reform of TV Serbia (and the whole system).

Of course, there are problems in all of this. Firstly, it will be very difficult before the elections, which are very close, to find the time for even lesser jobs. Also, according to Studio B, any eventual technical assistance from the Federal Government would only cover 25% of the amount needed to make a network able to cover the whole of Serbia.

To be more precise - 400,000 marks would be necessary to build one transmitter with the complete and indispensable infrastructure. To cover the whole of Serbia, around ten such transmitters are necessary, and Panic's team is simply not in a situation to give a positive answer. "The independent programs cannot count on any great material aid," announced the Prime Minister's cabinet.

Maybe this plan could be helped by some kind of economic alliance between Studio B and TV "Politika"; maybe Studio B's director, who is presently in America, will experience a slackening of the sanctions and get some financial aid, but all in all, it is most improbable that anyone will succeed in even irritating Television Serbia.

To make things worse, after the latest trickery of SPS following the agreement reached at the federal round table talks, neither the Federal Government nor the opposition believe anymore in the possibility of normative regulation of the entire information system. To the question whether they expect anything from the agreement on behavior of the media in pre-election campaigns, the government answered negatively: "The practice of disregarding the law - from the Constitution to regulations - shows that writing something into the Law and creating the illusion that in this way something will change, would be harmful," told us one of the government's officials.

In the absence of other means, the Federal Government has nonetheless chosen once more to try a legal solution to the problem, and has offered the Socialists a greater number of constituencies in return for a free television. Of particular interest is the fact that Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic attended the meeting of the government where this compromise was offered, which could only mean that he himself has at last got an answer to his question of what's with the television.

Then again, according to what can be heard in the circles near to Cosic, it is difficult to expect him to grant the request and demands of the opposition and take sides when the television and many other things are in question.

For its own part, the opposition, which looks like having given up on any major demonstrations with regard to the television (one member of DEPOS said that this was judged as not being efficient enough), will probably continue to demand of the Federal Government that it settle matters with the TV on its own.

All that can be expected, explained lawyer Milenko Radic to us, will be for the Constitutional Court of Serbia to finally answer the demand made long ago to consider the legality of the Serbian Government decision by which Milorad Vucelic and another 12 TV officials were given their positions (they were appointed on the basis of the Law on Radio-Television Serbia, which, at least then the appointments were made, was not in line with the Law on Public Information).

Radic also hopes that it will at least jiggle the public's memory regarding the criminal charges brought against those responsible in TV Serbia for "spreading hatred and intolerance" and says: "They shouldn't be given the death sentence applied by some legal systems because of this. Ten years imprisonment, which is what our own law foresees, is quite enough."