ZAGREB, Sept 17 (Hina) - Croatian Television (HTV) is not a propaganda machine of the government or ruling parties as it was before the elections in January 2000, but is still far from serving public interests in a professional
manner, officials from the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights (HHO) said on Wednesday at the presentation of the book "Politics in Croatian Television Programmes".
ZAGREB, Sept 17 (Hina) - Croatian Television (HTV) is not a
propaganda machine of the government or ruling parties as it was
before the elections in January 2000, but is still far from serving
public interests in a professional manner, officials from the
Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights (HHO) said on
Wednesday at the presentation of the book "Politics in Croatian
Television Programmes". #L#
The book contains the results of an analysis by the HHO of Croatian
Television programmes from the beginning to the end of November
last year, which shows that the number of reports on political
parties in news programmes has been significantly reduced from 63.8
percent in 1999 to 16.3 percent and that there is no distinct
predominance of ruling parties as was the case in the 1990s.
News programmes devoted equal amount of time to politicians from
both ruling and opposition parties, while three years ago this
ratio was three times higher in favour of the ruling party.
Sociologist Alija Hodzic, who collaborated on the project, said
that HTV news programmes were still dependent on political parties,
particularly those in the opposition, and were dominated by "values
contrary to Croatia's aspirations to join the European Union".
Professor Stjepan Malovic from the Faculty of Political Sciences in
Zagreb said he was mainly concerned about the fact that more than
half of the 14 media experts interviewed in the survey had drawn
attention to professional shortcomings of HTV reporters and
editors.
In addition to the depoliticising of the state-run network, the
survey described as positive the observed increase in the number of
reports on trade unions, judiciary, public administration, economy
and the non-government sector.
The analysis shows that there are still few reports devoted to
minorities, although they are given more programme time now than
they were before. Less attention is given to national symbols and
there is less nationalist rhetoric and hate speak.
OSCE mission chief Peter Semneby, who attended the presentation,
said that his organisation would financially support a project of
monitoring programmes of HTV and other important media in Croatia,
which the HHO will conduct during the election campaign and after
the elections.
(hina) vm