Bosnia’s Local Journalists Under Political Pressure

Bosnian journalists have to contend with a variety of pressures on a daily basis which prevent them from doing their work properly, says a new report by the Post-Conflict Research Centre, launched at a conference in Sarajevo on Friday.

The report, entitled ‘Real Voice of Journalism’, says that media outlets in smaller local communities suffer most badly from political and financial pressures.

“There we have open, political pressures, but also other pressures,” Marija Arnautovic from Radio Free Europe told the conference.

Erna Mackic from BIRN Bosnia said that journalists often depend financially on media owners, which leads to deteriorating professional standards.

“Sometimes we see self-censorship,” said Mackic, and added that in situations like this, journalists are often forced to resign or to stop following professional standards.

Borka Rudic from the BH Journalists association said that the lack of response by police and prosecutors to documented attacks against journalists makes the situation even worse.

“Out of all the reported cases, only 24 were ever concluded in favour of the journalists and most of those were prosecuted as misdemeanours, and not as a criminal act which stops someone from expressing their right to freedom of expression,” said Rudic.

Lejla Turcalo, an assistant professor from Sarajevo University’s Faculty of Political Science, said that journalists have to be afforded protection.

“We have failed to act on pressures on journalists and we have failed to condemn those owners of media who show no respect for their own employees,” said Turcalo.

More than 30 journalists were interviewed in 17 local communities for the Post-Conflict Research Centre’s report.

Tatjana Mijovic of the Post-Conflict Research Centre told the conference that journalists argued that media owners should not use their platforms for propaganda and also asked for better legislation to protect them.