 | CONVERSATIONS WITH A GHOST |
Feral Tribune, Split, Croatia, April 8, 1996
The [Croatian] media, despite severe controls (or perhaps indeed because of them), is not immune to terrible gaffes. We can accept with a certain dose of understanding and collegial sympathy the gaffe of the Croatian Radio reporter who concluded his report on the recent visit of President Tudman to Benkovac with the words: "You have been listening to a speech of President Tito." But it is difficult to accept with similar emotions last week's abandonment of all professionalism, an abandonment which simply swarmed from the radiowaves and newspaper stands.Though the occassion is tragic - involving the airplane accident near Dubrovnik and the death of 35 people, including American Secretary of Commerce Ronald Brown - the low level of professionalism with which certain local media treated the visit of the American delegation to BiH and Croatia imposes upon us the following question: who are these people that have found their way into the Croatian media, especially the state-controlled media?
Croatian Radio, with an unbearable ease of routine, broadcast in its 3:00 PM Wednesday program a report of its Dubrovnik correspondent which anounced not simply that Prime Minister Matesa awaited Secretary Brown in the Dubrovnik airport, but, indeed, that a meeting of the two delegations had already begun. This was anounced some time after 3:00 PM, at a time that is, when the plane had already crashed near Velje Dole (the crash occured at 2:40 PM), and at a time when the travelers, including Secretary Brown, were unfortunately already dead.
If we were in some how able (at least partially) to forgive the newspapers, whose production technology simply forces certain pre-judgements, concerning even that which is news, we cannot similarly forgive the radio, which has the technological fortune to present events to listeners in so-called "real time."
But that which we cannot forgive even newspapers, in this specific situation Vecerni List, is flat-out falsification.
Always the fastest, most precise, most competent, as it itself likes to babble, Vecerni List did not satisfy itself simply with the information that the Americans had reached Dubrovnik (although they didn't), where Matesa received them (he awaited them but did not receive them). In its first edition on Thursday, it even published an anouncement which Secretary Brown supposedly gave upon his arrival in Dubrovnik....
VECERNjI LIST ARTICLE RE-PRINTED BY FERAL:
Official U.S. Delegation led by Secretary Brown, in Dubrovnik
A SIGNAL FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Dubrovnik: A group of 15 American businessmen in the fields of infrastructure, energy, and finance, led by American Commerce Secretary Ronald Brown and other employees of the Department of Commerce, were received yesterday at the Dubrovnik airport by Croatian Prime-Minister Zlatko Matesa, Vice-Presidents of the Government Borislav Skegro and Dure Radic, Ministers Davor Stern and Niko Bulic, President of HKG Nadan Vidosevic, US Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith, Croatian Ambassdor to the US Miomir Zuzul, Governor of the Dubrovnik-Neretva county Jure Buric, and Dubrovnik mayor Nikola Obulje.The American delegation arrived hoping that during its stay in Croatia and BiH it could assess the possibilities of investing from 5.1 billion dollars into the region as part of a reconstruction program initiated by the US, EU, and various other international financial institutions. The program forsees a reconstruction of the energy system, transportation, residential homes, and health care.
"The fundamental purpose of my stay here is the fact that the keys to keeping the peace are long-lasting economic growth and the establishment of new employment opportunities," anounced R. Brown, who also said that from this visit he expects results similar to those achieved by America 50 years ago with its economic assitance to West European countries.
"This mission signals the next phase of American relations with Bosnia and Croatia," said Brown.
Article translated by Sasha Greenawalt (sasa@topaz.rasip.etf.hr)
