Belgrade,
14:26,
Thursday, 24 April 2008
Beta
In theory, non-government organizations and the media are supposed to be a major driving force in the fight against corruption by directing attention to crooked officials, among other things. In reality, however, Serbian media outlets mostly do nothing more than carry reports on corruption that has already been discovered, while doing nothing in the way of analysis and investigative journalism. The effect of NGOs is no less dismal.
For the media to be able to play their part in combating corruption, media outlets need to be corruption-free and possess the integrity to put their ethnics and professional codes in the priority spots. The latest Global Corruption Barometer from Transparency International shows that in Serbia, the media and NGOs got corruption rating of 3.5 on a scale of one to five, where five means very corrupt.
An analysis on corruption reporting in the print media done by the Center for Liberal-Democratic Studies as part of a recent study titled "Corruption in Serbia: Five Years Later", shows that corruption hardly gets the attention it deserves. Even when bribery and abuse of authority are reported, the approach is sensationalistic and far from analytical.
Serbia has 27 daily newspapers and numerous weekly and monthly publications. However, competition in the periodicals market has not contributed to the development of investigative journalism because tabloid-style coverage is the prevailing choice.
Djordje Padejski, head of the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia's Center for Investigative Journalism, says that surveys indicate a serious lack of attention to this branch of journalism. At the same time, very few publications are willing to depart from the usual way of doing things and address issues such as corruption, organized crime, or secret motives guiding politicians and the ruling parties.
"Media coverage of corruption happens only after somebody gives the green light or when it suits a political party, elections, or when there is a need to relativize the issue in a society where unresolved scandals are commonplace. Very few media outlets were behind any of the corruption scandals of the last several years. It has always been the politicians that uncovered the scandals for their own political gain. The most recent of these is the Miskovic affair, which has direct political interests underlying it," Padejski says.
He adds that the reason for this probably has something to do with media outlet ownership, political influence, and the growing power of advertisers.
Data from the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia's Center for Investigative Journalism shows that two-thirds of the country's broadcasters and publications are either directly or indirectly controlled by the state, "which is also obvious from a cursory glance at the content that is shown or printed."
"When you take the fact that tycoons own media outlets through companies based on exotic islands, the media mafia story, and the fact that the state has ownership and thereby a direct say in the editorial policy of mainstream media outlets, there really aren't any conditions for any kind of investigative journalism," according to Padejski.
He goes on to say that uncovering who really controls a media outlet is of paramount importance since the owner is not necessarily the man officially in charge. Padejski stresses that if a tycoon is the owner of an outlet, that outlet certainly will not tackle corruption.
Consequently, he adds, Serbia needs antitrust laws to extend to the media.
As another reason for scant media coverage of corruption Padejski gives the fact that reporters have very little time and funding to devote to projects like corruption, which require serious consideration. Other times they simply do not know where to begin.
"Instead of having media outlets that keep track of what the political elite is doing, while looking for coverups, they in fact belong to that elite, the corrupt part of society," says Padejski. According to him, one way to encourage the media to switch to investigative journalism is a deal between all journalists in order to leave the confines dictated by the political elite. However, that, he says, takes time.
Nino Brajovic, president of the Association of Journalists of Serbia, says that in most cases media outlets merely report what somebody else has said on corruption, adding that investigative reporting is rarely used in concrete cases.
Most of the time allegations of corruption are voiced by politicians without any corroboration and result in a pointless exchange. The Anti-Corruption Council agrees that this is the usual mechanism. "Evidence need to be found to back up something that happens to all of us on a daily basis and that's familiar to us all -- that you have to pay to get your baby delivered, that you have to pay to get the administrative apparatus to deal with your case quickly, that people pay to pass their university exams. These things happen to many of us daily and we know that they do, so we don't need evidence," Brajovic tells us.
He agrees that media coverage of corruption is rare because investigative journalism is not widespread, both due to economic hardship and the fact that reporters who want to dig into corruption need the support of their employer and coworkers. Most of the time, the other staff lack the political independence for that to happen.
So far none of the reporters organizations have launched anything in the way of a campaign to encourage the media to join the fight against corruption, other than several panel discussions on the issue. According to Brajovic, such a campaign would be of immense importance to society as a whole and the Association of Journalists of Serbia would gladly take part. "It is in our interest not only to help and encourage coverage of corruption, but also to foster investigation of corruption in the media. Many affairs have been uncovered in recent years -- the construction mafia, road mafia, and so on, but never has anybody mentioned media ownership, the issue of broadcasting permits, whether things are being done by the book and whether there has been abuse," he adds.
According to Brajovic, this would be an important first step in tackling corruption in the media because much of the public is convinced that there are people who control several national TV stations together with high-circulation newspapers.
"That means they are breaking the law," he says, adding that corruption and violations of the law are not always the same thing, although sometimes breaking the law requires paying a bribe first. According to the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia's Padejski, the organization's Center for Investigative Journalism is trying to get reporters to take up a more active role by looking for stories and addressing topics of importance to their communities.
"This is a project that we are doing in cooperation with local media outlets in order to get reporters to address these issues in the long term. We believe that all good stories are local in nature and that this should be the starting point. We are trying to improve journalism and provide assistance," he adds.
Danilo Pejovic, with Transparency Serbia, says that the National Strategy on Fighting Corruption, adopted in 2005, makes several recommendations intended to improve the way media outlets operate, raise awareness of the perils of corruption, and help the fight against this phenomenon.
The part of the Strategy dealing with the media contains a set of recommendations concerning the way media outlets are run. For starters, advertising should be separated from news reporting and the National Broadcasting Agency and the National Telecommunications Agency need to get proper operating conditions. After that, laws need to be passed on the status and rights of media outlets, on the prevention of discrimination by the state, and other laws need to be amended, according to Pejovic.
Additionally, Pejovic says that the Strategy also advocates transparent ownership.
"Ownership is 'more or less' open right now because it's relatively easy to find out who owns a media outlet, at least on paper. However, when it comes to financial issues, current laws impose limits on public access because tax information is confidential," he adds.
Commenting on current media reporting on corruption, Pejovic says that the number of articles and stories rises and falls as new scandals are uncovered. "When a scandal is discovered, media coverage peaks and you get a large number of reports, ranging from the sensationalistic to the analytical. The kind of approach to corruption means focusing on individual cases, which results in analytical articles dealing with corruption as a systemic issue," he adds.
Pejovic adds that analytical articles are rare both because information gets old very quickly and because writing them requires a knowledge of the issue at hand, a problem compounded by the lack of a system to keep track of the effectiveness of anti-corruption legislation.
Many corruption-related articles are therefore written by people from non-government organizations or state officials who provide a level of analysis.
The media are also urged to establish a code of ethics for reporters, with special emphasis on barring corruption, while establishing a way to enforce this code. Reporters need to be independent professionals and have to operate in line with this code.
This recommendation has been implemented, at least in part. The Association of Journalists of Serbia and the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia collaborated in creating a code of ethics in late 2006. The code envisions the setting up of a Press Council as an arbitration body.
"The introduction of a code of ethics for Serbian reporters and the founding of the Press Council as a joint regulatory body representing both reporters and their employers and also consisting of representatives of the public are important steps toward media professionalization and therefore are essential in combating corruption in the long run," according to Brajovic.
Padejski feels that the ethics code is just a piece of paper because reporters abide by it when it suits them. He says the situation will improve when the Council is formed.
The National Strategy on Fighting Corruption observes that non-government organizations can help in the fight against corruption even though they can have the opposite effect due to the lack of regulation. The dire social situation in Serbia makes many NGOs dependant on donors and makes it difficult to evaluate their activities. It adds that NGOs have a role to play in boosting public awareness of corruption and how it can be prevented and reduced, as well as keeping people up to date on new anti-corruption measures and their effects, and freedom of information regulations. Lastly, NGOs are expected to help ensure the financial transparency of citizens groups and keep track of how such groups spend money received from the state.
Transparency Serbia's Danilo Pejovic says NGOs still have a big part to play in Serbia. "Action is needed in so many areas, especially educating the population and keeping people informed."
However, few NGOs actually do any of this because just a few, including the Anti-Corruption Council, are involved in fighting corruption.
As for NGOs becoming a source of corruption and tool in the hands of the corrupt, Transparency Serbia and the Center for the Development of the Non-Profit Sector recently stressed this in a study on government spending on NGOs.
They observed that the basis on which some NGOs receive state funding is far from clear, as is the benefit gained by the population. They intend to push the authorities to include this kind of information in the latest draft budget.
In 2007, 0.43 of the national budget, about EUR38.5 million, was spent on NGOs.
The Regulations and Reality section was made possible by Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Mission to Serbia. The OSCE Mission is funding all articles posted on this site.
Regulations and Reality takes a look at the implementation of the National Strategy on Fighting Corruption, approved in December 2005, the enforcement of anti-corruption laws passed in the last five years.
It also focuses on the effects of these laws, their limitations, errors that have appeared, and planned changes.
Every article created as part of the project is available free of charge to individuals and media outlets visiting the Argus website. The editors of Argus assume full responsibility for the views and information contained in each article. The articles do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the organizations supporting the project.
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In theory, non-government organizations and the media are supposed to be a major driving force in the fight against corruption by directing attention to crooked officials, among other things. In reality, however, Serbian media outlets mostly do nothing more than carry reports on corruption that has already been discovered, while doing nothing in the way of analysis and investigative journalism. (0)
