SOUTHEAST EUROPEAN REPORTERS' CONFERENCE TAKES PLACE IN ZAGREB

ZAGREB, April 16 (Hina) - Reporters from south-east Europe, gathered at a conference in Zagreb on Friday, discussed electronic media in Croatia, especially on the Croatian Television (HTV). Acting HRT editor-in-chief Hloverka Novak-Srzic and president of the association of electronic media reporters, Forum 21, Damir Matkovic, had differing opinions regarding the situation and position of the Croatian Radio and Television (HRT). Srzic held the new Law on HRT was an improvement, and the transition from a state to a public television was imminent for HRT. She said the HRT needed professionalism. According to her, this would be improved by employing "unburdened" reporters-trainees who would be trained abroad and would have adopted western standards of reporting. Matkovic said the law would become an improvement only when European standards for the freedom of media are adopted. The HRT should become a public television as soon as possible, and its monopoly should be abolished by granting concessions for a third and fourth networks, Matkovic said. He added it was necessary to change opinions of the Opposition and ruling party that public media served electoral victors. The two-day conference, which gathered some thirty reporters from 20 countries, is being held as part of the European Union's "Royamount Process" initiated by governments of European countries as help to the stabilisation and development of good neighbourly relations in south-eastern Europe. It is being held under the organisation of the international federation of reporters (IFR) and the Croatian Journalists' Society (HND). (hina) lml jn