EAR/RRM/201/2/B7 - 671 - Contract No 7
FROM MEDIA SUPPORT PROGRAMME
MEDIA MONITORING FEBRUARY – JUNE 2002
Final Report
Analysis by Pro Media and EIM
Introduction Media Support Programme
The Media Support Programme was an EU-funded initiative, running from January to June 2002, aimed at encouraging the highest professional standards amongst the media in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
The Programme sought to provide:
· an objective view on the present: through qualitative and quantitative monitoring of the current media output in this country
· substantial and tangible tools for the future: through a series of training programmes for journalists at all levels, and accompanying measures to promote common approaches to issues of ethics and responsibility.
· Despite the short duration of the Programme, it was designed to bequeath skills and standards which can subsequently be applied in the long term. The programme was also designed to complement other similar activities – current and planned – being carried out by national and international media organisations in the field of media support in this country.
The Media Support Programme was carried out by a broad consortium of both national and international partners. The national partners were the Macedonian Institute for the Media, the Association of Journalists in Macedonia, and Pro-Media. The international partners were the Danish School of Journalism (Arhus), the International Federation of Journalists (Brussels), and the European Institute for Media (Dusseldorf).
The Media Support Programme was divided into three complementary and inter-linked components, all of which were aimed at improving and consolidating professional and ethical standards of journalism and the media.
The Macedonian Institute for the Media and the Danish School of Journalism concentrated on training activities for both junior and experienced journalists – covering fundamental and modern practices, with a focus on the practical implementation of professional and ethical standards.
The Association of Journalists in Macedonia was supported by International Federation of Journalists in applying and promoting the Ethical Code, which was recently approved by the journalist community.
Pro-Media was supported by the European Institute for Media in a media monitoring component focusing on media practice in the country, thus providing a framework of reference for the training element, as well as for the elaboration of the Ethical Code.
The instrument for media monitoring has been developed by Pro Media, a domestic consultancy and research NGO, with the input from the EIM and a media expert, Dr David Deacon (UK). Also, the report has been written by Klime Babunski, with support from Agim Poloska for Albanian language media) and EIM project coordinator, Dr Elena Chernyavska, edited the report.
The findings and conclusions of the monitoring report are those of Pro Media and European Institute of the Media alone and cannot be taken to represent opinions of the other members of the Consortium or the EU.
For further information, please contact:
E. Chernyavska of EIM in Düsseldorf on
Klime Babunski of Pro Media in Skopje on
Section I. Monitoring conclusions
The results of quantitative monitoring allow the team to conclude the following.
Throughout the monitored period, reporting on security, political topics and socio-economic consequences of the conflict consistently reflected the media’s ethnic and language affiliation. Even in cases of a common focus of reporting, media coverage differed substantially. For example, the activities of the ICTY in the Republic of Macedonia received a positive or negative coverage depending on the relevance of the given investigation to either of the ethnic groups.
The ethnic and language affiliation was also obvious in the presence of various actors from ‘the other’ ethnic community in the media and in qualifying these actors either positively or negatively. For example, the usual negative reference to members of the NLA in the Macedonian-language media was ‘terrorists’, ‘the so-called NLA’, etc. On the other hand, the usual pejorative characteristics applied to ethnic Macedonians in the Albanian-language media included ‘infidels’, ‘Slavo-Macedonians’, etc.
Following coverage of the most vital aspects of political and social life in the country in the last five months, the monitoring team noted with concern that each of the media groups reported on a different reality. For example, coverage of security in the Macedonian- and Albanian-language media concerned mainly checkpoints in the areas of last year’s crisis and ethnically mixed police patrols. The Albanian-language media would often report on the topic critically and demand the abolition of such checkpoints, while reporting neutrally on roadblocks established by the local Albanian population. The Macedonian-language media, on the other side, considered abolition of such checkpoints as damaging to the country’s security, and roadblocks were consistently negatively assessed.
The monitoring team concluded that while in the Macedonian-language media one could clearly see examples of partisan reporting, coverage of the topics included in the sample on the whole reflected a greater degree of political heterogeneity than was apparent in the Albanian-language media. This is hardly surprising as media linked to the ethnic minority often tend to emphasise political unity rather than difference. It is not the intention of the monitoring team to blame the Albanian-language and the Macedonian-language media for political systemic failings which are reflected in journalism. Yet, it would encourage media to adopt a more pro-active approach to news-gathering and reporting, especially in the election year.
Several sections of the quantitative analysis below show that Republic of Macedonia’s public service broadcasting has seriously compromised its role in that the editorial line differed following the ethnic affiliation of the service (i.e. Macedonian- and the Albanian-language). The conclusion may not be immediately obvious. Analysis shows that time allocation to particular categories in coverage of the main issues was very similar on the Macedonian-language MTV and the Albanian-language MTV 2 programmes. However, analysis of qualifiers applied to the events and the main actors showed huge discrepancies in the editorial line. Section V of the Report gives a comparative overview of quantitative monitoring of MTV and MTV 2.
The monitoring team noted good professional practice in the monitored media, regardless of their language affiliation, in reporting on incidents of violence. The media would specifically stress that perpetrators had not been identified, thus stemming a possibility for further speculations on their ethnic affiliation. Another example of relative overcoming of barriers of language and ethnicity was noted in coverage of the Leunovo incident and a subsequent journalists’ march in June 2002. The media coverage of the incident is analysed in Section VI of this Report.
The perspective of building a broader, state-wide identity encompassing both ethnic groups and unity as well as the perspective of reaching consensus between an ethnically and linguistically divided audience and readership were narrowed and compromised by certain journalistic practices. On the one media side, these included glorification of the former NLA members as freedom fighters who ‘served the ideals of freedom and victory’. On the other media side, there was a glorification of special units and their ‘readiness to defend the country’. The common denominator of both trends was support and perpetuation of national romanticism, which the monitoring team considers a dangerous phenomenon, potentially conducive to further flare-ups.
The monitoring team noted that some media, especially Fakti, criticised outlets from the ‘other’ ethnic group for low professional standards. While the importance of the issue of journalistic professionalism is indisputable, on these occasions, the attacks seemed more concerned with generally discrediting the ‘other’ community than fostering a meaningful debate about the maintenance and improvement of media standards. In this way, the credibility of the whole journalistic community in the country was damaged. The monitoring team would encourage this type of professional discussion within the industry because this is the only viable way of improving professional standards. At the same time, the team considers such public accusations, without reaching a professional consensus, as increasing the ethnic gap and as an additional means of dividing ‘good us’ from ‘evil them’.
The team noted with regret that the ethnic gap was present not only in reporting on the above-mentioned three major topics, but also in coverage of largely a-political issues and topics, for example, sports events.
It should be noted however that in quantitative terms, especially in reporting on social and economic matters, many other issues, which were actively covered by the media, stayed outside of the monitoring sample. For example, in the monitored period there was a lot of coverage of strikes, cases of privatisation, allegations of corruption, specifically concerning the relevant report of the International Crisis Group and allegations against the Government concerning dubious privatisation deals and corruption. Yet, among political and security reporting, topics included in the sample dominated the coverage.
The cumulative statistical results are listed in Annexes (available on request from ).
Section II. List of media and methodology
Television
1. MTV - Macedonian National Television -- the Macedonian language programme
2. MTV2 - Macedonian National Television -- the Albanian-language programme
3. TV A1 (nation-wide) private station
4. TV SITEL (nation-wide) private station
5. TV KISS [1] - Macedonian language private station (local -- Tetovo)
6. TV ART - Albanian language private station (local -- Tetovo)
7. TV NOVA - Macedonian language private station (local -- Kumanovo)
8. TV HANA - Albanian language private station (local -- Kumanovo)
Print media
1. Utrinski Vesnik - Macedonian language media
2. Dnevnik - Macedonian language
3. Vecer - Macedonian language
4. Vest - Macedonian language
5. Flaka - Albanian language
6. Fakti - Albanian language
Basic elements of the monitoring methodology
A coding instrument was developed to quantify the extent of media reporting and its evaluative direction. For each item, the amount of space allocated to specific political sources and issues was measured, which cumulatively has enabled us to establish (a) which themes and personalities were given greatest prominence during the sample period, and (b) whether there were significant variations across media sectors in ‘who’ and ‘what’ received coverage. Additionally, each item was scrutinized for manifest examples of editorial attributions and assessments and classified using a three way categorization (neutral, positive or negative).
The monitoring was performed every second day with one day difference between electronic and print media. The monitoring was solely applied to items appearing in the sampled media that focused on the post-conflict situation in the Republic of Macedonia and were connected with the topics of either political reform, the security situation or social and economic consequences of the conflict.
The following topics have been monitored:
Political situation including constitutional changes and the Framework Agreement implementation, local self-government, police reform, use of minority languages in state institutions, etc.
Security situation including armed incidents and violence, kidnapping, shootings, establishing of new paramilitary groups, security of Macedonian or Albanian population in the conflict area, etc.
Social and economic consequences of hostilities, including IDP's, unemployment, economic revitalisation in the conflict area, etc.
The instrument for media monitoring has been developed by Pro Media, a domestic consultancy and research NGO, with the input from the EIM and a media expert, Dr David Deacon (UK).
Analysis of Monitoring Results
Section III. Issues
The monitoring team focused its analysis on the following main issues:
· politics
· security
· social and economic consequences of the conflict.
The section below shows comparative allocation of media’s attention to these issues. The team measured time allocation per topic in seconds in case of electronic media, and space allocation per topic in square centimetres in case of printed media. In case the (positive, negative, neutral) context is analysed, the analysis refers to the amount of references (items and articles) per topic.
III. 1. Electronic media
Politics. Among political topics MTV allocated the highest percentage of time (23%) to covering the constitutional changes and the Framework Agreement, and to the early elections and the new electoral model (21%). TV Sitel devoted about 40% of the total time to the early election and the new electoral model, followed by the Law on Amnesty. TV A1 spent 46% of time to the new electoral model, followed by the constitutional changes and the Framework Agreement.
MTV 2 allocated most of the time to the constitutional changes and the Framework Agreement (28%), followed by the Law on Amnesty (19%) and the new electoral model (15%).
MTV reporting on constitutional changes and the Framework Agreement as well as on the early election was a 100% neutral. Sitel TV was a 100% neutral reporting on the constitutional changes and the Framework Agreement, but the station was mainly negative (88%) concerning the Law on Amnesty. A1 TV was mainly neutral (85%, with 13% negative items) reporting on the new electoral model and early elections. Only 10% of reports on the constitutional changes and the Framework Agreement broadcast by A1 were negative, the rest of items were neutral.
MTV 2 reported on the constitutional changes and the Framework Agreement in a neutral manner in 65% of items and in a positive manner in 29% of items. The issue of amnesty was mainly covered in a positive manner (70%), with 19% of neutral reports.
Security issues. Security issues received most of the time on all Macedonian-language TV stations. Although difference in time allocation between security and politics is noticeable, security issues did not dominate the coverage. On MTV it made up six per cent, whereas in case of A1 and Sitel TV it is around 15%. The Albanian-language MTV 2, on the other hand, devoted almost equal time to items related to political reforms and security issues.
Among security issues, MTV devoted most time to the general security situation (25%), armed incidents (24%) and return of the mixed police patrols (15%). On Sitel TV reports on the general security situation took up 33% and the coverage of the armed incidents got 28% of the time. On A1, the two most covered categories, armed incidents and the general security situation, received 24% of the time each, followed by return of the ethnically mixed police patrols (12%). The Albanian-language MTV 2 allocated most of the time to the armed incidents and violence (28%), followed by the return of ethnically mixed police patrols (25%). MTV 2 covered the general security situation significantly less than the other TV stations (15%).
In most reports on armed incidents and the general security situation, MTV was neutral (95% and 100% respectively). TV Sitel reported on the general security situation in a neutral manner in 68% of items, and in a positive and negative manner in 16% of items each. Reporting on armed incidents on TV Sitel was in 96% of items neutral and in 12% of items negative. A1’s reports on armed incidents were neutral in 87% and negative in the rest of items. Covering the general security situation, the TV station was neutral in 81% of items and negative in 15% of items.