On that occasion the head of the state said that last year Croatia succeeded in meeting one of key preconditions for the accomplishment of its strategic objective when it opened accession negotiations with the European Union. On the path towards the EU membership which Mesic described as demanding and difficult, the Croatian society requires cooperation and support from the media and journalists.
Croatia needs responsible journalists who never forget the basic tenets of their profession and professional ethics. Croatia needs media whose owners will not take care only and exclusively about profit but who will be able to get profit from "the media which will inform, educate and entertain the public without brainwashing and manipulating the public", he said.
The president added that he was expecting the media to inform Croatians as comprehensive as possible about the EU and Croatia's membership talks with officials in Brussels as well as about what Croatian citizens can expect when their country join the bloc.
The leader of the Croatian Journalists' Association (HND), Dragutin Lucic, thanked the president for his care about the media freedoms even when he was not satisfied with media reports.
Lucic said that some international political and journalistic circles had warned Croatia that after it had made headway in the development of media freedoms over several years, the country seemed to be returning to what he said "colonial relations towards political centres of power".
Lucic particularly thanked Mesic for his counter-statements to severe criticism and attacks levelled against the Croatian national broadcasting corporation (HRT) in 2005. According to Lucic, those were "the most difficult times for the media freedoms in Croatia",
The HND will not strongly defend reporters "who cause storms in the media" but it will safeguard the tenet that every journalist has the right to present his or her position and defend them with arguments.
We are ready to analyse the situation in the media, including the strongest HRT, but we shall not do it "when a gun is put to our head", Lucic said.
"I hope that you will continue to persistently defend the media against any pressure coming outside the sphere of the rule of law and democracy," the HND chief told Mesic.