by Jeremy Druker
Frustrated and confused, Franjo Mesic sat in his office as workers arrived to pack up computers that until recently were used to produce Tjednik, Croatia's only serious newsmagazine. Launched with great fanfare a year ago, Tjednik ('Weekly') took its last gasps in mid-March, after limping along for months - deeply in debt, arguably politically compromised, and with a circulation of barely 11,000. More than $500,000 in funds from international donors was long gone.
"I believe the story of Tjednik is finished," said Mesic, its manager. "If somebody tries it again, it should be on a professional basis with market analysis, a realistic business plan, and realistic financial sources."
The reasons for the collapse are complex but point to the many obstacles local journalists and media funders face when they gamble on a high-stakes project designed to raise professional standards and challenge an authoritarian government. Failure of a gamble like this can mean far-reaching consequences for other media projects - in Croatia, in the Balkans, and beyond. Many local and foreign observers say the Tjednik fiasco could make donors reassess their way of giving media assistance or even make them think twice about giving at all.
The controversy also incites strong emotions because assistance for independent media remains crucial in Croatia, and money wasted represents a setback in the fight for greater freedom and plurality. The situation in 1996 - when Tjednik's founders first approached potential donorsŃis not so different from today: President Franjo Tudjman and his Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) still keep Croatian Radio and Television on a short leash, allowing little, if any, coverage of the opposition and no criticism of the regime. Independent media either don't exist - such as a private nationwide television station - or are under constant pressure.
From a business standpoint, in 1996 the market for a serious newsmagazine seemed wide open. Globus and Nacional, two mass-circulation weeklies, fall into the category of "semi-independent" publications. They run stories critical of the government but often back down under pressure and also resort to sensationalism.
Even Feral Tribune, Croatia's most fearless voice of opposition, is not a typical newsmagazine. Zarko Puhovski, a philosophy professor at the University of Zagreb, described Feral as one of several "counter-mobilizing" media that fight the government with nearly the same hatred as the government fights them. In the long term, he said, the most effective instruments of change are "demobilizing" media, which attempt to reduce the level of emotion, fear, and hatred in public discourse by arguing their points in a dispassionate manner. Tjednik aimed to be just that.
"If they had understood the project from the beginning, they wouldn't have been disappointed later on," said Davor Glavas, a veteran Croatian journalist who works as a media analyst for ProMedia, a USAID-funded program providing media assistance in Central and Eastern Europe. He said that at some of the early donor meetings in October 1996, he warned that GoldsteinŐs circulation estimates of between 50,000 and 60,000 were not realistic. Few could afford to splurge for a weekly magazine in tough economic times, he argued, and those who could often already had their favorites. Glavas said potential funders should have realized they would need to be in it for the long haul. "If you are targeting intellectuals and good-quality decision makers, 15,000 is not bad, but it will always need support from foreign donors."
In the Croatian journalistic community, there is a general feeling that Tjednik was approved because top officials in the U.S. Embassy and at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) took a special interest in the project. Among them was then-U.S. Ambassador Peter Galbraith, said Don Lippincott, former editor of the ICFJ Clearinghouse newsletter, which monitors aid to Central and East European media. "We were informed that the former ambassador was extremely interested, but it was quite apparent that they didn't do their homework, because it was driven at such a high level," Lippincott said.
That still rankles Croatian journalists: they say U.S. diplomats condemned the old, communist way of doing things - when it all came down to whom you knew in the nomenklatura - but then engineered a big payout to a well-connected group whose project had problems. "Goldstein thought he didnŐt get support from media here, especially the independent media," said Glavas. "It's easy to understand why. When you're working under really horrible conditions, when it's possible just to beg to survive, and you're lucky to get $20,000 to $30,000 a year, now someone will get $500,000 for nothing, for a non-existent project."
Complaints that Tjednik wasn't playing by the rules also arose after the resignations of four Open Society Institute-Croatia media board members, a scandal widely reported in the local media. Applicants for funding from OSI-Croatia, part of the network of Soros foundations, must submit proposals to the media panel, which then makes recommendations to OSI's executive board. According to Bozo Novak, media board chairman at the time, Tjednik failed to win the group's approval. Krsto (Christopher) Cviic - one of Tjednik's founders but also a member of OSI's executive board - then went directly to the executive board, Novak said. Cviic asked for and received a $100,000 grant. Shocked that the executive board had ignored their reservations and disgruntled in general by its media strategy, four media board members - including chairman Novak - resigned. Karmen Basic, head of OSI-Croatia, said the executive board had simply overruled the media committee, which was "biased" in favor of another publication.
Tjednik's managers did come with good credentials. The 70-year-old Goldstein worked for decades in radio, film, and publishing. In the 1980s, he began to agitate for greater democratization and political pluralism in Yugoslavia. When change finally came at the end of the decade, Goldstein became president of the Social Liberal Party, the first to emerge as an alternative to the League of Communists. But he soon left politics and began editing the respected intellectual journal Erasmus. Cviic, Tjednik's first editor in chief, is a Croat who emigrated to Britain in 1954, studied at Oxford, and then spent two decades covering Central and Eastern Europe for The Economist.
Unfortunately, observers say, Goldstein was in over his head, and the donors' failure to press for strict accounting and reporting only accelerated the financial freefall. By most accounts, the losses during the first three months - 3.5 million kuna ($545,000) according to Tjednik's Mesic - were far greater than would be considered normal for a publication trying to break into the market. Other criticisms were that the magazine had inflated salaries, expensive office space, and too many journalists and not enough middle managers.
At USAID, there is a general mood of having been betrayed by a friend. "We made a wrong assessment to think he had some managing experience," said Slavica Radosevic, in charge of media grants. "He had more of the socialist type of business experience ... but he was also naive and expected donors to give money on time and keep giving more."
Goldstein himself says he tried, without success, to find younger people in Croatia's small pool of qualified managers to inject energy and new ideas into the magazine. In his view, the main problem was that donors had not lived up to what he asserts were written promises to provide $500,000 by the start-up date: the money came in various installments, with the final sum arriving that summer. "My fault was that I was optimistic about the circulation and that donations would come," Goldstein said.
Despite the difficulties, Tjednik's launch was impressive. The lead article in the premiere issue explored the clashes between Croats and Moslems in the Bosnian city of Mostar and challenged the line spread by Croatia's official media that Croats were not to blame. That article launched the magazineŐs first-rate coverage of Bosnia, something rarely available in Croatia. Some of the country's most talented journalists (many lured away from other independent publications) wrote about economic scandals, Croatia's increasing isolation, and Tudjman's authoritarianism - all showcased in a glossy, full-color package.
But there was something missing, an edge perhaps, to propel the magazine into mass popularity. Goldstein blames himself for assembling a team that had talent but no common vision for the magazine. Some Croatian journalists say that Cviic simply lost touch with the market after living abroad for so many years, failing to create a publication that would provoke controversy and thus attract readers.
With Tjednik already in heavy debt, donors helped engineer the sale to Radomir Cacic, owner of a prosperous management firm. The 48-year old Cacic, an architect by training, is a rare breed: a wealthy businessman who achieved his success earlier and hasn't cozied up to the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). He also sits in parliament and heads the Croatian PeopleŐs Party (HNS), a moderate opposition party with little influence.
Donors confess that they were not entirely comfortable with a politician owning Tjednik but said they had no other choice if they wanted to help it survive. "Everything is so confused on this scene, and the ruling party helps to create this atmosphere," said OSI's Basic. "So this clean attitude is simply impossible."
Cacic had assured donors and his editor, Sanja Modric, that he would not interfere with editorial policy. But Modric, a respected journalist who worked for years at leading independent newspapers, said he soon walked into her office, demanding, "What do you think you're doing, describing the Croatian People's Party as a minor political party in Croatia? You can't say that about the party again." She said Cacic also insisted that staff salaries be cut to a point where she felt she could not put out a high-quality product. She quit. Cacic later launched a "Word from the Publisher" column, once having it ghostwritten by a party colleague.
This year, circulation fell to 11,000 - not even close to the number needed to cover costs, let alone past debts. After putting in about $470,000 of his own money, Cacic decided to call it quits, said Tjednik manager Mesic. The decisive blow, he said, was the fact that the donors did not live up to their promises of support. "You either decide to continue or not."
Defenders of Tjednik praise it as raising the level of journalism and paving the way for others. USAID's Aanenson says the lesson for donors is the need to better coordinate their efforts. For others the legacy is potentially much more potent. They fear that potential investors may simply overlook the complexities of this project and conclude that the Croatian market isn't ready for a serious newsmagazine.
Research assistance by Ivan-Filip Jakopovic
and Vladimir Milinovic in Zagreb.