Serb protest over new TV chiefs

New vision: RTS broadcasts resume after black-out

Six weeks after ending their propaganda role for the Milosevic regime, Serbian state TV and radio journalists are in dispute over a new set of politically-appointed media chiefs.

Journalists' unions at state-run Radio-Television Serbia (RTS) briefly blanked out screens on Sunday night in protest at the appointment of the new management team by the country's transitional government.

This just goes to show that politicians are still blatantly meddling with journalistic autonomy

Gordana Susa (DOS)

"RTS workers will fight with all means available against those who believe that the wheel of history can be turned back and the situation in the country reversed to that before 5 October," said a union statement, read out live on air.

"As a sign of protest and as a warning about the seriousness of our intentions, the screen will go dark for the next 15 seconds."

And nationwide, TV screens promptly went blank.

Balance or interference?

The government-appointed RTS management team, named at the weekend, is made up of members of the three main political parties.

They are Nenad Ristic from the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), Milos Markovic from the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and Vojkan Milenkovic from the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO).

Serbian TV: no longer a propaganda weapon?

Serbia's interim government also appointed three members of an RTS editorial board and a 12-member management board.

Caretaker Prime Minister Milomir Minic told Radio B92 that the appointment of the new management team should create a climate of balance and objective information in the run-up to elections.

But the unions' statement said the government action "seriously threatens democratisation and full emancipation from all party influences".

Gordana Susa, a newly-appointed member of the editorial board and a member of DOS, refused to take up her post.

"This just goes to show that politicians are still blatantly meddling with journalistic autonomy," she told Radio B92.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.