TV MREZA'S REPORTERS FORCED TO STOP REPORTING

( Editorial: --> 2567 ) ZAGREB, Sept 23 (Hina) - Reporters for the independent "TV Mreza" television on Wednesday stopped their work. The daily news will not be broadcast until the management provides them with minimal working conditions, news editor Tena Perisin said. "We worked on a minimum, but we cannot go below that," Perisin told reporters. "We have reached the bottom," another Mreza's news editor, Oliver Drazic, added. TV Mreza began broadcasting a year and a half ago, in unprofessional production conditions. The team who worked on the daily five-minute news believed it was just an experimental phase, and all problems would be solved in time, Perisin said. "Further obstruction of our work could be interpreted as the closing down of the only oasis of independent television news broadcasting in the country," she added. Full-time employees on the TV Mreza news team have not received their salaries since June, while part-time staff have not received their wages since May. The programme never had a network of correspondents, and agency news services have been cut off. A recent opinion poll showed that 84 per cent of viewers were satisfied with Mreza's daily news broadcasts. The US State Department last year described the network's news as objective. (hina) lml 231852 MET sep 98