Unprofessional and misleading

I am grateful to readers of peacefare.net for pointing out that the Serbian media has published accounts of my post on Serbia: media and government | peacefare.net., clearly attributed to a “knowledgeable friend,” as my own view. This is unprofessional and misleading.

Worse: the Serbian press is suggesting that I said “Mediji nisu u službi premijera Vučića” (D. Serwer: the media is not in the service of Prime Minister Vucic). That attributes to me views that are not mine and is at best a distortion of my friend’s views. The author never said there is no censorship. The piece tries to explain how and why the media is pro-Vucic, not that it isn’t. The author gives several reasons: most people, including in the media, think the prime minister is doing the right things, and some people in the press are sychophantic towards the government because of opportunism or cowardice, including fear of losing government advertising. He also says media conditions are nowhere near as bad as they were under Milosevic.

You are entitled to wonder, what do I think? Do I agree with my friend?

One of the reasons I asked my friend’s opinion is the difficulty in forming my own. Beyond “kako ste” and “dobro dan,” I am not a Serbian speaker. I read the Serbian press mostly through Googletranslate and on B92’s English service, which is an eclectic mix that I find useful but not necessarily representative. My friend’s response was more nuanced and interesting than a lot of the commentary on press freedom in Serbia that I see in English-language media, so I thought it interesting enough to put in the public domain, even though it had to be published anonymously. It tried to explain the several mechanisms that make the press pro-government, rather than simply blaming ill-defined censorship. Whether I agreed or not was not an issue in deciding to publish it.

The Serbian press reaction and abuse of this blogpost is a true reflection of the state of the Serbian media, as one of my correspondents suggested today. It was unprofessional to attribute the views in the post to me personally. It is also inaccurate to suggest that the post exonerates the Serbian government.

As I see it, there is a tendency in Serbia, as in other transition countries, for the authorities to attack the messenger rather than respond to the message. This happens occasionally in mature democracies–President Obama a year or so ago was sharply critical of Fox News–but it is relatively rare. The press is doing its job in a democratic society when it reports unsavory facts or uncovers what it thinks is malfeasance. The right response 98% of the time is to the facts or the allegations, not to attack the media.

The situation is complicated in Serbia and elsewhere in the Balkans because some of the media more critical of the government and more willing to report what it regards as malfeasance is supported internationally. This can be unsettling to politicians, who are too often inclined to think the money is explicitly aimed at discrediting them. The “Sanader effect” (Ivo Sanader was a pro-EU prime minister of Croatia who has gone to prison for malfeasance) makes politicians in the Balkans particularly sensitive.

I can’t speak for the European Union, but I know that when US government money goes to support foreign media it is intended to support professional and accurate reporting, as well as a wide range of views. Even government-owned Voice of America aims for professionalism and accuracy. In my hundreds of interviews with VOA, RFE/RL and other government-supported outlets no one has ever tried to tell me what to say. Years ago I was present when Vice President George H.W. Bush, upset with something VOA had published about him, ordered a US embassy official to fire the correspondent. The diplomat had to tell the vice president that could not be done.

Of course this doesn’t mean that either I or the outlets that carry my interviews are 100% correct or in some absolute sense unbiased. I have colleagues who believe they are not asked to give interviews by VOA because their views diverge too much from those of the US government. There is no absolute purity in the media business. Influence is exercised in many different ways, not only in Serbia but also in the United States.

That said, there is a big gap between the relatively independent press in mature democracies and the kind of shabby and sycophantic coverage my blogpost on the Serbian government and media got this week. There will always be some media that toe government lines. But I like to hope that things will evolve in a more professional and mature direction. I’ll be amused to see if the Serbian press publishes an accurate account of this, my followup post.

And no, I don’t think things are worse today than under Milosevic. Nor do I think things were better in the Balkans in Tito’s time, as so many in the seven countries derived from Yugoslavia like to say. These invidious comparisons fail to give credit where it is due: things have improved and I hope will continue to improve, even if I am among those who would like improvement to come faster.

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6 thoughts on “Unprofessional and misleading”

  1. Manipulation of Serbian media indicates that in Serbia there is no media freedom, all media are under the Vucic’s control, as I wrote in a comment on your first article on media freedom in Serbia. Yes, I argue that media freedom in Serbia, today, is the same as in the nineties (when was Vucic been Minister of Information)

  2. “And no, I don’t think things are worse today than under Milosevic.”
    Well, sir, You are obviously not well informed. The mechanisms for media control through advertising have made the media much worse than in Milosevic’s time. It started with previous government, but now escalated even worse.
    If you would really like to know more – here You go:
    http://birn.eu.com/en/network/birn-serbia-home

  3. Of course, nowhere in the world, media have not reached the desired level of freedom. Serbia is on the right track, still far away from goal, but comparison with the nineties and Milosevic is just silly. This is our reality, which reveals are bigest problems: the financial crisis and unemployment. I’ll quote part of your article that explains everything: “In order to receive continued financial aid, the MFA need to convince the potential international (or foreign) sponsors that the situation in Serbia is “catastrophic,” that the media are “terrified by Vučić and completely under control by the government”

  4. I think that there is much more to be done about the journalism in Serbia than anyone suspects. There is no investigative journalism. Everyone is sitting in his chair wether on some for of financial help, either from the government or from open and emancipated society supporters. That is why everyone are in this mode of absolutes. No one wants to work. They read each other and express their opinions against each other. Fox News or MSNBC with less style, professionalism (I am unsure can I say this for Fox News) and half-read info from the second hand about a blog post by 3rd party on a respected blog. It is not the first time that people from Serbia from opposite poles of political spectrum express their opinion on peacefare.net. And I find all of them more balanced to the critique from both sides. I think that Mr. Serwer, as an accomplished diplomate, and good in what he is doing manages to find the moderate voices in the society and establishes a balanced dialogue. Not what we can se in Serbia.

  5. Now that you know that even you are being censored in Serbia,how can you have any doubts? PM Vucic and his media used your name and your reputation to further enhance their public position. They are misinforming the public about every aspect of our lives. They are doing this on daily basis.

    Hell,i will do the translations for you, free of charge,it would be a pleasure to do so. Only if you will pay attention!

  6. I could tell you first hand that that Serwer knows all about unprofessional and misleading.

    Sewer behaves much like the propagandists of the Soviet Union once did. He manipulates humam right lingo to push his own nationalist agenda (i.e. Jewish nationalist but pretends like he cares about America and human rights)

    Wonder if Serwer would recognize Palestinians as the “real” Jews? Bet names and identities would matter then eh Daniel? And what happened again to all those ethnic Khazars? Why is it again modern Jews like you look so different? Is it because:

    a. Moses talked to a burning bush and you are a pure racial descendents of ancient Jews from 3000 years ago?

    b. You are part of a group made up of many ethnic groups that were assimilated into Jewish religion over course of middle ages?

    http://inventionofthejewishpeople.com/

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