Working within the Belgrade Media Machine
By Zoran Stanojevic Posted Wed, Sep 1 1999
I haven’t had a more difficult time in my life than the first week of NATO attacks against Yugoslavia. As a Serbian journalist working for the American TV network NBC, I was torn between patriotic feelings — triggered by the fact that my country was under attack — and the fact that I had to report the attacks professionally as an objective spectator. The strict censorship that was imposed on the first day of attacks made things even more difficult, and I began to fear for my own well-being.
That first week was full of confusion and uncertainty for journalists. Yugoslav authorities hadn’t yet decided what to do with foreign journalists, so they took conflicting steps. On the second day of bombing, March 25, authorities issued an order that all journalists from NATO countries leave Yugoslavia by the end of the day. That information wasn’t officially confirmed, but many journalists complied, especially after some had unpleasant experiences with local police. My team split in two, and only the most necessary of us stayed behind to continue reporting from Belgrade. We couldn’t send any video material through Radio Television Serbia, but we managed to get some tapes out of the country and report on the phone. After several days, the authorities allowed a group of journalists, mostly Americans, to return to Yugoslavia. They opened their facilities to the journalists but imposed strict rules. Every tape had to be examined before it was fed to satellite, but the authorities were mainly interested in the pictures. They paid little attention to the stories themselves.
For Yugoslav authorities the presence of foreign journalists, especially British and American, was crucial. Western journalists were seen as a path for distributing Yugoslav viewpoints outside the country. It took only a few days for officials to figure out that live interviews were more effective than previously recorded sound bites. Live interviews provided them several minutes of air time, which was enough time to explain the government’s views. For journalists, getting an official to do a live interview was easy. Few Yugoslav authorities speak fluent English, however, so the same faces often appeared on TV.
In the second week of bombing, the Yugoslav army established a press center with wide authority. Every journalist had to be registered at the center and be issued daily permission to work in the field. Without papers from the press center, papers that sometimes took hours to obtain, everything was forbidden. It wasn’t long before another round of censorship was imposed. Under the new rules, every tape had to go through army censors first. Then it was checked by people at RTS, and finally it was sent via satellite link. Print journalists were under less-strict rules, but their reports were also carefully monitored (one of the disadvantages of the Internet age). At least 20 reporters who were considered biased were asked to leave the country with 24 hours’ notice. They were given no further explanation. At least 100 more could not get their visas extended — a sophisticated way of expelling journalists.
Similar and even tougher restrictions were imposed on the domestic media. Some independent media outlets were shut down, and others were ordered to broadcast the main newscasts of RTS. Citizens of Serbia saw little of what was going on in Kosovo. Serbian news covered the civilian casualties in Serbia, worldwide anti-war activities and occasional pictures of NATO losses such as downed planes and the capture of U.S. servicemen. No Yugoslav army losses were reported.
People with satellite dishes and Internet access got information freely, but few of those people supported NATO action. Not even news of the flood of refugees swayed them. They had good reason, however. In August 1995, the Croatian army forced between 500,000 and 700,000 Serbs out of Croatia. The pictures then were similar to those shown on international news channels, such as CNN and BBC, recently. The international community did not react in 1995, and many Serbs became bitter. Today they wonder why the refugee crisis in Kosovo is different from the refugee crisis in Croatia. Even Serbs who don’t support President Slobodan Milosevic find the situation unfair. They criticize the media’s coverage of the current crisis.
To further compound the issue, there have been several deaths of media personalities since the crisis began. Only two weeks after the bombing started, Slavko Curuvija, a prominent Yugoslav journalist and the most successful newspaper owner in the country, was shot and killed in front of his apartment in broad daylight. Once a friend to Milosevic’s wife, Mirjana Markovic, who is considered the only person with influence over the president, Curuvija switched loyalties and become one of the toughest critics of the regime. His paper was banned, and he was fined US$400,000, a sum he couldn’t pay. Yugoslav authorities denied any ties with the murder and promised to find the killer. There are no results so far. Curuvija’s colleagues paid him a tribute, but many of them began to fear for their own lives. With more pressing issues to worry about (daily bombings, for instance) people began to forget Curuvija’s murder shortly after it happened.
Finally, a month into its bombing campaign, NATO bombed the RTS building with the rationale that state television has a crucial role in Milosevic’s propaganda machine. Many victims of the attack were technical staff, and many were supporters of the opposition parties. The propaganda machine stayed intact, however. RTS continued broadcasting after only a six-hour break. Yugoslav authorities used the attack on RTS as evidence of NATO’s inability to wage a media-based war. Instead, NATO used bombs. Still, Yugoslav authorities failed to provide any explanation of why they didn’t evacuate the RTS building after numerous warnings about the possible attack.
The Yugoslav media repeatedly accused their Western colleagues of not being objective and failing to report the truth, but that attitude didn’t affect the citizens of Yugoslavia. There were no reports of foreign journalists having trouble with local citizens. In fact, citizens responded positively when asked for their opinions. Many citizens even went a step further by joining Internet discussions and creating Web sites about the crisis.
With the Internet, satellite TV, digital phones and other sources of information that cannot be censored, nobody is short of information. The only thing we may be short of is responsibility.