Recommendations to BiH institutions and media organisation:

Council of Ministers and Entity Governments: The Council of Ministers should urgently fulfil its obligations towards the Communications Regulatory Agency (appointments of the Director-General and Council members) and fully implement the legislation on the public broadcasting system in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Council of Ministers should also ensure the continued work of the working dealing with the Strategy on Transition from Analogue to Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting. The State and Entity Governments should fully respect the competencies and decisions of the Communications Regulatory Agency and respect the editorial independence of RTRS and Federation TV.

Cantonal and municipal governments: The Cantonal and municipal governments should allow for the privatisation of the TV and radio stations that they own and refrain from trying to influence their editorial policies. These broadcasters are paid out of public budgets and should therefore be at the service of the public, and not individual officials and political parties.

Governments at all levels and political parties: The governments at all levels and political parties should respect freedom of the media and journalistic independence. They should not put undue pressure on media representatives, and refrain from interfering with editorial policies, in particular those of public broadcasters.

Print media owners: The owners of the print media should support the Press Council of BiH and widely publicise its decisions. They should also strive to uphold the highest journalistic standards in their media outlets, protect their journalists from political pressure, and pay them decent salaries.

Institution of the Human Rights Ombudsman/Ombudsmen of BiH: The Ombudsmen’s Office should open a department for the protection of freedom of expression and journalists rights in the country, similar to the position of ombudsman assistant for the media that the Federation Ombudsmen’s Office had. The objective would be to oversee that freedom of expression, which is guaranteed by the constitution of BiH and both its entities, is respected; that there are no violations of the media laws (on public broadcasting, access to information, libel, etc.); and to take up cases of intimidation of, and attacks against, journalists.

Police, prosecutors and judges: The existing media laws framework should, in principle, be sufficient enough to guarantee freedom of speech and freedom of expression. However, it is more than obvious that in practice the media and journalists are not protected against political pressures and physical threats. The police should timely and efficiently react to attacks on journalists. Any hindering of journalists to perform their professional duties is unacceptable and as such must be publicly condemned and sanctioned by the police, prosecutors and judges. The prosecutors and courts have to come forward with social awareness and responsibility.

BH Journalists’ Association, Communications Regulatory Agency, Press Council, Media Centre: These media organisations should, according to their missions and primary objectives, to continuously observe trends in the Bosnia and Herzegovina media landscape and register all threats and violations of adopted media laws, ethical code and professional standards and develop adequate responses to it. The BH Journalist association is going to establish an indicator-based Early Warning System to keep domestic and international institutions informed of the media situation and be able to quickly demand support and action when needed.

Recommendations to journalists and editors:

Journalists and editors – professional attitudes: Journalists and editors should be more courageous. At all times, they must strive to reach high professional standards, and resist efforts to influence them. We are not suggesting that they should put themselves at risk. But every day, journalists and editors make dozens of small decisions – about which stories to cover, which sources to use, how to put the stories together. They should try to hear all sides and produce fair stories. They should be critical towards everybody. They should try to gain the trust of their audiences.
Journalists and editors should critically ask themselves whether they practice self-censorship and try to stop it gradually. There is a lot of space between self-censorship and submission on one hand, and being a fearless investigative journalist who attacks the most powerful people on the other hand. A little bit more courage, a little bit more reflection about what one does is already a good start to stop self-censorship.
Journalists and editors should be aware that their career will only last if they do not allow political parties to instrumentalize them – if they do, they are likely to lose their job once their favoured party is out of power. They should refrain from using hate speech and producing smear campaign stories.

Journalists and editors – “solidarity”: Journalists and editors should write about the deteriorating media situation. They should appeal on their authorities to implement all media legislation and act against the negative trends in the media field. They should call on the political parties to respect editorial independence. They should write about attempts to intimidate their colleagues and attacks on them.

Journalists and editors – stories to cover: Journalists and editors should produce more stories that will help their audiences assess the quality of their governments. How are big infrastructure projects proceeding? Do government services work? What is going on in certain economic sectors? Where are economic success stories? Journalists and editors should also analyse political issues – why did the visa liberalisation process become a success after a very slow start? What are the problems with constitutional reform?

Associations/Trade unions for journalists and other media employees: The associations and trade unions should closely cooperate and coordinate their actions. If they all demand the same and have enough members, they will be a very strong lobby that media outlets cannot ignore. A useful first step would be to conduct a survey about the working conditions and salaries of journalists, and, based on that, decide on the next steps. One of the first steps should be to prepare unified collective agreements as a tool for protection of social rights of journalists and media employees.

Recommendations to European and international organisations:

European Commission: The European Commission, which monitors BiH’s progress towards EU standards and EU legislation, should start to pay more attention to the media situation in BiH and give it a higher profile in its progress reports as well as its contacts with BiH authorities on media issues. It must not forget that full implementation of the legislation on the public broadcasting system is a long-standing demand of the Commission. The European Commission should continue to support the independence of the Communications Regulatory Agency. The Commission should consult the key media organisations, the watchdogs of the Bosnian media landscape - the Communications Regulatory Agency, the Press Council, the BH Journalists’ Association and Media Centre Sarajevo ahead of drafting its annual progress report. It should also consider funding these media organisations as important segments of democratisation processes, bringing closer to European integration.

MEPs: The European Parliament’s Delegation for relations with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo should also pay more attention to the media situation in BiH. The next time MEPs visit Bosnia, they should try to meet with a representative of the BH Journalists’ Association, the Communications Regulatory Agency, Press Council and Media Centre Sarajevo.

OSCE: The latest OSCE Report on the BiH media as well as the newly appointed OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media are giving encouraging signals to become more engaged with regard to the situation of the Bosnian media. They should analyse shortcomings, explore and identify solutions, raise awareness and use their influence to bring about improvements. The proactive OSCE role and increased involvement provide crucial tools to launch corrective measures in addressing the problems that exist.

Council of Europe: The Council of Europe should continue to monitor the media situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina since guaranteeing freedom of expression and the independence of journalists is one of the commitments Bosnia undertook upon accession to the CoE in 2002. The CoE should identify and point to the deficits that exist. It should pro-actively make its reports widely available, both in Europe and in BiH. Within context measuring the appliance of indicators The Council of Europe is to be commended for the planned media monitoring during the pre–election campaign in BiH and the training seminars with journalists it intends to conduct.

OHR, EUSR and PIC Steering Board: The OHR and PIC Steering Board should familiarise themselves with the problems that exist in the media field and use their influence to bring about improvements including with regard to the incomplete and insufficient implementation of media laws such as the laws on the public broadcasting system; interference by political parties and the authorities in power with the editorial policies of media outlets; and verbal and physical attacks against journalists.

All embassies in BiH: Embassies to BiH should pay attention to the deteriorating media situation in BiH. In their contacts with BiH authorities, they should raise the problems that exist and call on the authorities to fulfil their obligations. The obligations of the authorities are to fully implement existing legislation, in particular on the public broadcasting system and on freedom of access to information; to refrain from politically interfering with editorial policies; and to allow the privatisation of Cantonal and municipal electronic broadcasters. Embassies should also become active in cases of political intimidation of journalists reported to the Free Media Helpline; they can ask the authorities to ensure investigation and, if necessary, they can help protect the journalist. They should also contribute to sustainability of the key media institutions and outlets of the Bosnian media landscape.