FERAL TRIBUNE ALLEGATIONS ABOUT HINA REPORTING UNFOUNDED

( Editorial: --> 5545 ) ZAGREB, Dec 3 (Hina) - The Hina editorial board issued a statement on Wednesday rejecting allegations by the Split-based weekly Feral Tribune published in its December 1 issue about Hina and its reporting. Citing as "a classic example" of how Hina "purges news items of anything substantial in them" in order to "cloud their political content", Feral Tribune said that Hina had "skipped" US criticism in a recent report on the Croatian government's reaction to an appeal by the US State Department that Croatia ensure unobstructed work for the Open Society foundation. In the same article the Split weekly accused Hina of "denying the Croatian public the right to be informed about the United States' position on 'the unacceptable public defamation of the Soros Foundation and George Soros himself' and the State Department's concern about 'the selective application of existing legal measures, criminal prosecutions and taxation policies to intimidate prominent opposition journalists and non-governmental organisations'." Hina editors said that the truth was that Hina's November 26 report on a news conference by State Department spokesman Jim Foley in Washington, carried verbatim all the parts of his statement which Feral Tribune claims were omitted. The Hina report was carried by Croatian newspapers on November 27. "Therefore, political messages to the Croatian public are not being clouded by Hina but by its critic," the editors said. Furthermore, two years ago Hina rejected as untrue Feral Tribune allegations that in its coverage of war crimes committed in Stupni Do, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in October 1993 Hina "put in circulation an evidently inaccurate and biased official report of the HVO (Croatian Defence Council), treating it like other reports by unbiased foreign intelligence agencies". "The fact is that in a space of about ten days in late October 1993, Hina released a total of 24 items from all sources available to it, including Reuters and AFP news agencies, the BBC, a Sarajevo radio report, and statements by UNPROFOR, UNHCR, British peace-keepers, the US State Department, the Croatian Foreign Ministry and the UN Security Council," the editors' statement said. Hina was among the first to publish an official HVO statement, following the principle of publishing all views from relevant sources rather than making arbitrary decisions on which of them should be "put in circulation". "Hina, unlike Feral Tribune it seems, was not aware of reports by 'unbiased foreign intelligence agencies' on the Stupni Do events so it could not carry them," the editorial board said. (hina) vm jn 031710 MET dec 97