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I think this is probably the first time I have been invited to something called an “expertise workshop.” That sounds very impressive, not to mention imposing. In the face of so much expertise, it makes me reluctant to speak. But I will anyway, if only because, from my perspective, this particular expertise workshop is timely and important. The mass media here seems to me to be under threat from many quarters. On the other hand, it is also beginning to seem its own worst enemy. All this means that having an independent and capable regulatory body for the broadcast media is as essential as it has ever been.
The creation of the Communications Regulatory Agency has been described as one of the most significant institutional successes in this country. It is worth taking a moment to recall the circumstances that led to its creation. The use or, more properly, the misuse of the state-controlled broadcast media in the various republics of the Socialist Federative Republics of Yugoslavia did much to arouse fears and to foment violence that contributed greatly to the outbreak and continuation of savage war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Despite this, media regulation did not receive much attention in the Dayton Agreement. It was a responsibility, like so many others, left to the entities. In practical terms, this meant that anyone anywhere could establish a new television or radio station, sometimes with the help of international donors who – operating under the no-doubt-correct theory that the more independent media you have the better off you are – handed out equipment without bothering to set requirements for its use. (Even my own Mission got into the act. With Swiss support, it ran its own version of “regime media”: Radio FERN, the Free Elections Radio Network, the only station at one point that broadcast to the entire country).
In the summer of 1996, Bosnia and Herzegovina had 92 radio stations and 29 television stations. In 1998, that number had grown to 280. Different bodies were issuing frequencies and broadcast licenses too. Things got so bad that SFOR began seizing transmitters to take irresponsible broadcasters off the air. So the Office of the High Representative founded the Independent Media Commission in order to bring some order to this broadcasting chaos. Then, in 2001, by a Decision of the High Representative, the competencies of this Commission and the Telecommunications Regulatory Agency were combined to form the Communications Regulatory Agency, an independent institution responsible for regulating telecommunications and broadcasting throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The existence of this body has not, of course, solved all the problems with the mass media in this country. The picture painted by two experts, Mark Thompson and Dan DeLuce, in an article published in 2002, strikes me as almost as valid today:
With very few exceptions, the mass media in Bosnia were divided along national or ethnic lines throughout the war. A handful of independent outlets…refused to sacrifice professional ethics to political conviction, pressure, or opportunity. The remainder more or less served the various parties to the conflict, who regarded media control as an essential form of political power. Media helped sustain the Bosnian conflict for more than three years, and continue to hinder the establishment of a stable peace.
To me it is particularly egregious that the publicly-funded broadcasters belonging to both entities are still acting as advocates for one nation rather than as forces to unify the country as a whole. These days, when broadcasters are describing public officials as fascists and criminals, I can only hope they have proof to back their contentions. Of course, by virtue of their very offices, public officials are or should be open to more abuse than private citizens. But, still, I should think there ought to be a limit. Public broadcasting, after all, exists to service the public interest. The kinds of things being said on the air by journalists whose salaries are paid by the people of this country are, however, quite often fueling feelings of ethnic or national prejudice instead. That’s about the last thing this country needs.
Television has a special obligation to be responsible because of the extraordinary power it wields. As the saying goes, one picture really is worth a thousand words. In general, too, theorists of the mass media distinguish between regulation of the printed press and that of broadcasting. Because the former simply requires a printing press – or, today, a computer with access to the Internet – regulation generally should be voluntary; in theory, the truth will then emerge from debate and free expression of ideas. The broadcast media are different — not just because of their greater power to mold opinion but also because of the limitations on the media itself; there are only so many frequencies to go around. There are also a lot of demands for the same space on the airwaves, including, increasingly, from mobile telephone operators and the like. Someone has to sort this out, to keep the strong from devouring the weak and the rich from the poor, or simply to prevent the kind of free-for-all and chaos and propaganda-peddling that this country experienced during and right after the war.
Now in any country, but especially in a country as divided along national lines as Bosnia and Herzegovina, the person or persons who sort this out had best not have political biases or business interests that would lead him or them to favor one party or parties at the expense of others. The regulatory persona also needs to have the technical capacity to do the job. As far as I can tell, the Communications Regulatory Agency has demonstrated its abilities in both these areas. It would be a shame if all this were unraveled.
The contretemps over the appointment of the Director General of the Agency is, however, threatening to do just that. Essentially the Agency has been paralyzed since last autumn. It is time to end this impasse. It is time to observe the law.
I know that the Chairman of the Council of Ministers shares this view. I discussed this with him yesterday. But it is apparent from the press statement his office released after our meeting that we continue to have different opinions about what exactly this means. His statement concludes with this sentence: “CoM Chairman has stated that according to the Law on Communications, in Article 37, paragraph 1, item g, CRA Council is obliged to perform those duties assigned to it by the BiH Council of Ministers.” Now that paragraph says precisely this, at least in the English-language text of the decision promulgated by the High Representative: “Such other duties as are assigned to it under this Law or by the Council of Ministers.”
Here, I fear, is where cultural differences may have come into play. That reads to me like the standard line at the bottom of many position descriptions in the United States, which all tend to have some variant on the following: “Performs other duties as assigned.” It’s a catch-all phrase to cover assignments the boss may think of later. Whether it means that the Council of the Agency must comply with every demand of the Council of Ministers for information on its internal deliberations – whether, in this case, it must forward all documents to the Council of Ministers on the applicants for the position of Direction General – remains unclear to me. It cries out for that wonderfully Bosnian-Herzegovinian institution—an “authentic interpretation” (as opposed, I suppose, to an inauthentic interpretation) of this law.
In the same way, it also remains unclear to me what exactly this line in the first paragraph of Article 40 portends in practice: “The Agency shall be managed by a Director General who shall be nominated by the Council of the Agency and approved by the Council of Ministers within thirty (30) days after submission of the nomination.” This is because, unfortunately, the law fails to specify what should happen if the provisions of that sentence are not met. As a high-minded international person myself, I think I can guess the intent of the drafter. He or she clearly expected that the Council of Ministers would as a matter of course approve the person nominated by the Council of the Agency, who of course themselves would have selected the best person for the job, the one who most demonstrates, as the second paragraph of Article 40 rather sketchily states, “relevant experience in the fields of telecommunications and/or broadcasting and proven management skills,” without considering such things as ethnicity. The chance that it might not happen this way was probably not in the forefront of the mind of the person who prepared this decision. I suppose he or she could hardly have been expected to envision a meeting six years hence in Laktasi, when people representing the three constitutive peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina would award the job to a Croat sight unseen.
This strikes me as a bad way to appoint the head of an independent regulatory body. This kind of thinking and this kind of thing has already delayed the selection of the heads of a roughly similar body, the new State Ombudsmen, for more than a year. The current dispute, when coupled with the Laktasi agreement, is certainly not going to help Bosnia and Herzegovina’s so far rather sterling reputation for protection of press freedom. I would therefore hope that the Council of Ministers and the Council of the Communications Regulatory Agency could find a way to nominate and approve a Director General with the relevant experience and proven management skills who has proven to be the best of those who applied for the job. Who knows? This person might even turn out to be a Croat. But, whoever it may be, the sooner this is done, the better for all concerned.
Thank you.
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