Dear readers, we are delighted to present you with a joint third and fourth issue of the Baltic Media Newsletter. This one will concentrate more on the legal developments in Lithuania. In the last six months, Lithuania was active in adopting new laws directly or indirectly regulating mass media. One of the explanations of such activities could be elections which the country had at the end of 1996. Mass media’s lobby groups used the momentum in pressing political elite of the country to pass two major new laws: the Law on the Provision of Information to the Public and the Law on the National Radio and Television. In addition, the Law on Implementation of above mentioned laws specifying some technical details was also passed.
Election time was a good time to pass liberal laws—nobody from the politician’s camp wanted to argue with the media—so according to the experts, Lithuanian journalists basically got what they wanted. You can check experts’ opinions yourself, because in this issue we provide you with the most important chapters and articles of the Law on the provision of information to the public and the Law on the national radio and television. Excerpts are accompanied by a short comment.
The law on national TV and radio was met enthusiastically by the owners of the commercial RTV stations. It indicates that advertising on the national channel will be limited to 5 minutes per hour, and from January 1, 1997 the advertisement of goods and services began to be reduced by one minute every year. This means that step-by-step national TVR will withdraw from the advertising market and will cease to be a competitor for commercial TV and radio stations.
In exchange, parliament promised to introduce, at the end of 1997, a license fee as a major source of income. This should give national TVR full financial independence. For a moment national TVR is financed from the budget and advertising and enjoys a large scale of independence only on a management side. It is governed by an independent Board and administrated by the director general appointed by the above mentioned Board. The government and parliament don’t have any administrative means to interfere, except through the above mentioned budget subsidy. Anybody interested in the details of how public broadcasting is organized and regulated in Lithuania is welcome to go through the most important excerpts of the Law on national television and radio presented in this issue.
As we have mentioned in the beginning of the newsletter there were not many developments on the legal side in Latvia and Estonia. Latvia in 1996 finished regulating the broadcasting sector (we covered that in our second issue). Estonia for a moment is discussing advertising law, but there are too many undecided or disputable things, so we will wait for a while. And as for today we offer you interesting material on the impact of media on the dialogue and coexistence of the different ethnic communities in Estonia. The report is provided by Baltic Media Centre and summarizes the discussion held during the conference in Tallinn. It focuses on some media ethics and law issues.
In the end we want to thank new sponsors of the Baltic
media newsletter—Baltic Media Centre and, personally, Simon Holmberg—who’s
efforts enabled us to continue informing our colleagues about legal developments
in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Some commentators say that the Law on national RTV creates a new kind of TV and radio—a public one. There is no state TV and radio in the country any more, you may say.
In reality, though, the new law only creates the conditions to reform the old state structure, and to get an independent, professional, and creative public TVR company in the end.
The new law lays down the fundamentals of management, programming policies and financing of national TV and radio. Structural reforms are needed to make the company more efficient and competitive.
The new law defines the programming policies of the company; it is clearly declared in the Article 4 that there should be no place for mass culture in the programs of LNRTV. Good idea (we have to have a channel promoting serious programs, elite and national and national minorities culture), for it could create a controversy, because the interpretation of what is mass culture and what is just popular culture would depend on the tastes and opinions of those who have a right to decide, i.e. management and the board or various influential pressure/special interest groups.
On the other hand, speaking out against mass culture, the law draws the line between commercial TV and public TV’s programming policies and content.
Management of LNRTV is independent from government and parliament. The Board, which is the highest management body and is responsible for strategic questions consists of 15 members. They are selected and appointed only by the creative unions of the country. The director general is appointed by the board and is responsible only to the board and can by fired also only by the board.
The only direct means by which the government can influence the activities of LNRTV is through a budget subsidy, which makes up to 3/4 of the company’s budget.
Marius Lukosiunas
A conference on Estonian-Russian media dialogue was held in Tallinn on September 26,1996. Around 70 participants from all fields of the Estonian media- and the NGO community attended the conference which was the first of its kind in Estonia.
The conference was organized by The Estonian Media College
Foundation, The Estonian Newspaper Association, the Baltic Media Centre
and the Danish Centre for Human Rights. Following the conclusions of the
comparative report, the main issue of the one-day conference was to discuss
the roots of an information gap between different ethnic communities which
the media reportedly promote as well as ways and possibilities for bridging
such a gap. The findings of the report, as well as the conference, indicated
that however sensitive and controversial the issue of dialogue may be it
needs to be addressed by the media in general as they have a major impact
on the dialogue and co-existence of the different ethnic communities living
in Estonia.
In July 1996 the SAAR POOL Institute, an Estonian Institute for social and market research, carried out a major comparative study of the tone and content of the Estonian and Russian language press. The report, Picture of the World Created by Estonian- and Russian-Language Daily Newspapers from July 12-18, 1996, focused on the reporting of four major Estonian and Russian language dailies. The dailies were examined by articles divided into different subject issues touching upon all ethnic communities in Estonia: culture, education, former Soviet passports, crimes and accidents, citizenship, lifestyles, etc. In order to examine the tone of the dailies, the articles were classified according to type, e.g. as commentaries, interviews or news. Although the analysis was limited to four out of larger number of print media, as well as to a fairly short period of time, the analysis provided a solid indication of the differences within and reflected by the two media communities.
The overall conclusion of the report was that a markedly different picture of the world was created by the selected language dailies and disseminated to readerships divided according to language. Thus, both parts of the dailies would tend to ignore or delay issues related to the other ethnic community. The conference itself offered an alarming demonstration of such ignorance as almost all journalists from the Estonian language print media stayed away. Journalistic indifference, or ignorance, is a dangerous potential for depriving readerships of receiving information of public interest in general. Acting this way the media fail to fulfill their role as watchdogs of the authorities at the same time as they contribute to the process of alienation of the two communities.
The issue was taken up at the September-conference
on media dialogue by Peeter Vihalemm, Professor of Journalism at Tartu
University. Mr Vihalemm stated that all media have a responsibility to
apply the public-interest principle in order to ensure that the public
in general is informed about issues of relevance to their daily lives—be
it of political, cultural or another nature. It was underscored that the
principle is of specific importance to journalists in Estonia who should
perceive promotion of cultural diversity as part of creating common ground
for dialogue between different ethnic groups. In this context Priit Jarve,
who is co-ordinator of the Round Table of Minorities—a government advisory
body, advised the media to view their role as faciliatators of mutual understanding.
This role could be fulfilled, for instance, by focusing on developments
in other ethnic communities and by becoming more self-critical and critical
of the authorities.
Compared to a conference held in November, 1995 by
the Estonian Media College Foundation and the Baltic Media Centre, the
conference on dialogue became a turning point for the discussion of responsible
journalism. Thus, there was a general sense of frustration and regret over
the lack of agreed set of journalistic ethics in Estonia. The absence of
such professional standards was viewed as specifically problematic in the
light of Estonia’s multiethnic society. It was therefore suggested that
a round table of editors from all parts of the media community be set up
to discuss common standards for responsible journalism. Not only could
such co-operation lead to creation of a concrete and applicable set of
principles for the operation of the Estonian Press Council, but it could
also become a crucial tool in the work to counter any use of sensational
and abusive journalism transforming specific groups into stereotypes.
Although providing fairly broad protection of freedom of expression and information in Articles 40—45 of the Estonian Constitution, other Estonian laws constitute obstacles to the effective satisfaction of the information needs of all groups of society through the media. The Broadcasting Law of May, 1994 obliges the public broadcasters to promote information, cultural educational training and entertainment broadcasts, including transmission of “varied and balanced programs of a high journalistic, artistic and technical level” and “satisfaction of the information need of all national groups, including minorities” (Article 25), but fails to take the language-issue into consideration. In spite of the fact that more than one third of the population speak Russian, there is no obligation for any of the broadcasters in Estonia to broadcast in Russian. Furthermore, the Estonian Language Law of February 21, 1995 stipulates that the state language is Estonian and that all other languages are considered foreign (Article 1), including the languages of national minorities (Article 2, para.2). The law obliges Estonian broadcasters to add translation into Estonian of all foreign-language speech and text, but does not impose any obligation on them to translate Estonian speech and text into the minority languages.
In line with the Broadcasting and the Language Laws
most broadcasting in Estonia is in Estonian leaving the audience of ethnic
communities who do not speak Estonian with little chance to be properly
informed via the electronic media in Estonia. This problem is more serious
within television than radio as radio emissions are cheaper to produce.
The clear lack of electronic information for the non-Estonian speaking
part of the audience leaves the latter communities with little choice but
to seek information from alternate sources, e.g., in Russia. However, change
for the better is within eyesight as the Estonian broadcasters begin to
perceive it as their duty to promote integration of the Russian-speakers
into Estonian society and therefore start broadcasting in other languages,
primarily Russian. Another interesting trend was revealed at the conference
on media dialogue by Priit Hibemagi, Director of Meediakorp, who stated
that it is becoming more and more instrumental for Estonian language print
as well as electronic media to address the big Russian population in their
native language for commercial reasons.
The conference on media dialogue had some major positive outcomes which could ease the future mutual understanding. First of all there was a general interest in setting up bi- or multilingual media, both in order to ensure that all ethnic communities in Estonia be provided with equal information and for commercial purposes. Secondly, the profound need for professional skills-training was put forward as a problem as well as a possible factor for rooting dialogue between the language media. Among the proposed themes for skills-training were 1) objectivity, accuracy and fairness, 2) news gathering systems, 3) the public interest-principle and 4) approach to complex and conflicting issues. Maybe most importantly the issue of standards for professional journalism, which has hitherto been avoided for its controversy in Estonia, was opened up for discussion. They not only seemed to be a potential forum for dialogue within the media sphere, but also a necessary forum for ensuring the future protection of the independence of journalists from the danger of official legislation.
Material Provided by Baltic Media Centre