State of the Media in SE Europe: From Crisis to Corruption
A Media Symposium featuring scholars and journalists from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia
March 11, 2015
New York City
During the course of the Yugoslav Wars, media in Southeast Europe was virtually synonymous with “disinformation” and “propaganda.” In the years since the end of the Bosnian War (1992-1995), the Kosovo War (1998-1999), and the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia (2000), much has changed—or so it would appear.
Today, the post-Yugoslav media space is shared by international media conglomerates and local networks, while tabloids and broadsheets compete for readers with a growing number of online publications and blogs. Yet media monitors, investigative journalists, and foreign and local observers alike continue to raise red flags. Politicians still dictate the boundaries of acceptable speech, they argue, government critics are smeared and attacked on front pages, the yellow press dominates the discourse.
After a year of diplomatic breakthroughs and setbacks, riots, elections, and natural catastrophes, what is the state of the free press in South East Europe heading in 2015? Who truly owns the media space in the former Yugoslavia? And is telling the facts and naming the names still grounds for intimidation and censorship of journalists and reporters even with much of the region on the cusp of European integration?
Join us – journalists and scholars with deep Balkan media experience and scholarship on March 11, 2015 at the Harriman Institute for a one-day symposium, as we discuss media space and freedoms in South Eastern Europe today. The symposium will be held at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, Room 1512, located at 420 W. 118th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
Symposium Agenda:
9:00 a.m Breakfast and Coffee
9:25 a.m Welcome and introductions by Tanya Domi, Harriman Institute
9:30 a.m. Dunja Mijatovic, OSCE Representative on Freedom of Media, Keynote Address
10:15 a.m. Panel I: Free Media & Soft Censorship in South Eastern Europe
11:45 a.m. Panel II: Media Space & Ownership, Censorship Exerted by Political & Business Interests in Southeastern Europe
1:15 p.m. Conclusions, Tanya Domi
Panel I: Free Media & Soft Censorship in Southeastern Europe?
Moderated by Marija Sajkas, journalist and Head of Operations for the Media Diversity Institute.
Speakers:
- Milka Tadic Mijovic, U.S. correspondent, The Monitor
- Lily Lynch, Co-Founder and Editor, The Balkanist
- Aida Cerkez, AP Bureau Chief, Sarajevo; President of the Board of Directors, Center for Investigative Journalism (Sarajevo)
- Rosemary Armao, Associate Professor of Journalism, University of Albany at SUNY
Panel II: Media Space & Ownership, Censorship Exerted by Political and Business Interests in Southeastern Europe
Moderated by Jasmin Mujanovic, Visiting Scholar, Harriman Institute, Columbia University.
Speakers:
- Jorgen Samso, journalist specializing in the Balkans; graduate student, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
- Rosemary Armao, Associate Professor of Journalism, University of Albany at SUNY
- Erol Avdovic, United Nations and US correspondent, Dnevni Avaz daily 2
- Tanya Domi, Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
To read more about the event, including speakers’ bios, check out the Harriman Institute’s program.
