state sponsored journalism...talking about forcing our democracy there or what?
NATO Plans Kosovo Media Censorship Operation
Foreign Affairs Front Page News Keywords: KOSOVO, NATO, MEDIA,
CENSORSHIP
Source: New York Times
Published: 8/16/99 Author: Steven Erlanger
Posted on 08/16/1999 13:37:46 PDT by antiwar republican
NATO Peacekeepers Plan a System of Controls for the News Media in
Kosovo
August 16, 1999
NATO Peacekeepers Plan a System of Controls for the News Media in Kosovo
By STEVEN ERLANGER
P RAGUE, Czech Republic -- The United States and its allies charged
with peacekeeping in Kosovo are establishing a system to control
the news media in the province that would write a code of conduct
for journalists, monitor their compliance with it and establish
enforcement mechanisms to punish those who violate its rules.
A draft plan of operation for Kosovo's Department of Media Affairs,
which already has been established, was drawn up earlier this month
by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, calling
for a staff of 50 people.
It has been circulating on a restricted basis to member countries,
who have been asked to nominate suitable personnel. A copy was
provided to The New York Times by someone disturbed by the
contents. International news media groups also have heard about it
and already have expressed criticism.
A senior Western official involved with the plan, who spoke on the
telephone from Kosovo, said it was based on a similar program in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. The proposed "Media Regulatory Commission" and
"Media Monitoring Division" are not intended to intimidate or to
censor the local news media but to support and tutor them in the
ways of a Western free press, he said, until they can operate on
their own.
"The idea is not to censor anyone," he said. "The idea is to bring
people up to Western standards, so you need to present Western
standards to observe. And it will all be done in consultation."
On the other hand, he said, the department is charged with
preventing "the abuse of the media, especially radio and
television, so it can't be used to urge people to go out in the
streets and create riots."
But in Montenegro and Serbia, which together make up Yugoslavia,
Clinton administration officials are actively engaged in supporting
politicians and news media outlets opposed to the continued rule of
the elected Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic. In Serbia they
are helping the opposition to organize large street demonstrations
intended to press Milosevic to resign.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is charged
by the United Nations, which is in overall control of Kosovo, with
the "democratization" of the province, including running free and
fair elections. News media development is a crucial part of the
organization's task, the officials say.
The Kosovo Media Affairs Department, situated in Pristina, the
province's capital, is most urgently charged with allocating
frequencies and issuing broadcasting licenses for Kosovo. Various
businessmen, publishers and potential politicians are already
drawing up plans for new television and radio ventures for the
province.
The department proposes to create a Media Regulatory Commission, in
part based on America's Federal Regulatory Commission, which
governs the airwaves. But the commission would also write (in vague
consultation with Kosovo journalists) and administer a
"broadcasting code of practice" and "a temporary press code" for
print journalists, and then "monitor compliance and establish
enforcement mechanisms," the plan says.
As in Bosnia, the commission would have the right to censor
material, to fine stations or to order certain journalists or
stations off the air.
A "media monitoring division" would follow the content of local
journalism, report on compliance with the codes of conduct and
"track the treatment of journalists to insure freedom of expression
and movement as well as responsible behavior by journalists."
The plan calls for the appointment by the United Nations of an
"international appellate body," to which local news media could
appeal decisions or rulings by the commission.
There would also be an "independent media council" of local
journalists and civic leaders, also appointed by the United
Nations, to "advise" the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe.
The department also plans to name new management for Radio
Television Pristina, the former Yugoslav state television and radio
outlet in Kosovo, and to turn it into "a public-service
broadcaster," with programming in Albanian and Serbo-Croatian. When
it was run from Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital, it also used to
broadcast in Turkish.
"This arrangement," the draft plan says, "will also assist" the
U.N. mission in Kosovo "in its urgent need to communicate directly
with the population on matters vital to civil administration."
Eventually, the station, along with the Media Regulatory Commission
and all its powers, would be handed over "to duly constituted
Kosovar authorities."
According to the plan, the Media Department will also take
responsibility for coordinating international donors to the news
media, including private or nongovernmental agencies, while making
recommendations of media outlets worth sponsoring. It would also
work to develop a nonpartisan news agency for the province and to
establish a journalism school.
Media watchdog groups are critical of the plan. Marilyn Greene, the
executive director of the World Press Freedom Committee, a group
largely financed by American publishers and the Newspaper Guild,
said: "The infringement of press freedom is obvious. Unfortunately,
the lessons of Bosnia -- how not to operate a reconstruction
program -- were apparently not learned."
Bosnia was an extremely difficult case, said the Committee's
European representative, Ronald Koven. "But hard cases make bad
laws," and journalists are bound to feel pressure "to adopt certain
kinds of codes."
"There is a kind of colonialist mentality," Koven said. "Foreigners
are going to impose their standards and codes of conduct on
independent media journalists in Kosovo in a situation where before
the war there was a perfectly adequate independent
Albanian-language press that knew what it was all about."
He cited a forthcoming study of foreign media management in Bosnia
by professor Monroe Price of Cardozo Law School, Yeshiva
University, who wrote, "The time to intervene or control propaganda
is when brutality is imminent," not to protect the political
environment afterward.
"The line between information intervention and censorship becomes
blurred," Price wrote. "One of the great dangers of international
action to restrict free speech is that it provides apparent
democratic justification for any nation to use its police power to
close down media outlets."
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