By observing and looking from working conditions perspective and angle, journalism as professional trade and occupation has always been encountering and facing miscellaneous challenges. Despite being put aside and positioned on margins, professional journalism managed to sustain and survive in this society – particularly during the period of last few decades, particularly when working, social and professional journalists’ status in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been seriously questioned and challenged.
No contracts or poor and inadequate contracts, low and/or postponed (late) salaries/wages or insufficient material – based reimbursement for the work they perform, working illegally with unsettled, undefined and unclear work status; with socially and professionally endangered status, often without food allowance or transportation costs, exposed to constant and different types of pressures – journalists, along with other professional media staff, have been forced to work under the above listed and outlined conditions in BiH media market.
Let’s analyze one step at the time. Even during the process of formal education for the (future) journalist, certain malfunctions and irregularities can be noticed during the period of student work experience for instance. Therefore, on one hand, future journalists, (working as volunteers) often and utterly equal with experienced journalists (employees of certain media house) perform their duties and assignments together with senior journalists, and sometimes they perform even better than more experienced professional journalist, since their reports occasionally become “headlines” and “smashing news” etc; while on the other hand their work is minimized, devalued as they receive no credit for the work they perform .
Furthermore and at the end of journalists formal education (considering that if they are lucky to gain a certain level of experience during their studies and if they are lucky to prove themselves while doing their work experience in some media house and manage to stay there), they will, upon the completion of their final exam, hardly be registered and employed on full time basis, that is, they will hardly be entitled to their social and retirement funds. After volunteering period is over, they shall often put on a “probation period”, (as if this new status was formally and utterly different from the previously completed volunteering period), because after having completed the volunteering process, for which they never receive any money, they now require the so-called “probation work” (which again is very uncertain from the employment point of view).
As far as the period and the number of years spent, as part of the above mentioned “statuses” (volunteering and probation period) it displays yet another issue which can be discussed thoroughly. In the context of BiH media market, there have been cases in very reputable and respectable editing offices and media houses, having 15 to 20 journalists engaged, but with only a few of them being employed on “full-time basis”. Others included volunteers, scholarship students, probation workers or simply people working on a work experience basis. And even after a journalist has completed her/his volunteering, probation work, work experience period or God knows what other types of experience and has been provided with an opportunity to finally become a professional journalist and signs certain contract (for instance Author Contract or similar type of contract), this particular contract often appears (as far as for the labor rights of journalists are concerned, including her/his status and working conditions), as quite uncertain and unsuitable for this particular journalist and above listed rights. Journalists and other media staff should seriously be cautious regarding the contracts they plan to sign.
When they finally become “professionals”, journalists in BiH begin with encountering and facing real working, labor and social and above any other – professional challenges. It is well known that media reflects the situation in society, so therefore jour- nalists provide the picture reflected by media. If this picture proves to be poor and inadequate, its reflection or part of it cannot be any better. “According to a survey implemented by the BHAssociation Journalists”, 35% to 40% journalists in BiH work on a casual basis with no legal contracts and consequently are not entitled to pension and retirement funds. In fact, even those with full-time employment contracts are not sufficiently protected”.
As far as work and legal status of journalists is concerned, we could say that the most notable disadvantage include the absence and lack of quality – based and adequate protections of a journalist in most media houses through collective contracts. The protection of journalists’ rights could be ensured by the interference of media syndicates (unions), even though they hardly appear on media in BiH. Powerful centers and no transparency of media ownership information significantly contribute in complete absence of collective labor contracts and syndicate (unions), Also, as far as the aspect of harmony and guarantees of journalists’ authors rights is concerned, the situation is also equally poor and inappropriate, taking into consideration that contracts signed by journalists mostly (almost on regular basis) contain no provisions concerning the protection of journalists’ authors rights. Looking from the socio-economic point of view and in regard with journalists’ position, it is due to unsettled and undefined labor and legal status that vast numbers of journalists have unenviable socioeconomic status.
Additionally, a great number of journalists, which has previously been outlined, work illegally or have another (often in unfortunate) status, without healthcare, social and pension and retirement protection. Journalists often receive “minimum” wages and salaries and amounts they receive are often very low, postponed and sometimes they have to work for months or even years before they get paid for their work. Under such circumstances, additional and informal education is almost impossible to accomplish and everything is narrowed down to individual journalists’ engagements and journalists cannot afford any of the above mentioned additional, informal and special education at any level. Insufficient payments and devaluing of journalist in socio-economic context, results in the situation where “decision makers” in certain media houses (especially private media houses) believe and are to some extent determined that hiring a non-graduate student is more profitable and treat such student in terms of socio-economic perspective accordingly, than hiring a professional journalist. As far as the quality produced as a result of the above-highlighted employment “strategy” is concerned – we shall discuss some other time.
Finally, the professional position of journalists, as well as the two previous positions, is not any better in many senses. Namely, journalists constantly face different challenges and are often openly exposed to various pressures. A great number of daily – based assignments that must be implemented, and as a result, numbers of assignments that should be completed on daily basis are often not completed properly, that is, conducted professionally with quality and implemented rationally. Along with the above mentioned facts, we can- not neglect the influence of pressures imposed by media owners (entrepreneurs) and editing offices, where journalists are forced to follow the orders as requested by their superiors, since their superiors mostly focus on commercial profit or interest, which puts journalists under additional pressure, since they must obey these orders.
The internal editing diversions and distinctions based on different criteria and violated inner relationship amongst the workmates may cause yet another problem in this particular sense. Furthermore, faced with outlined economic, but also with political pressures, many journalists accept auto-censure and there are many cases of latent or even completely transparent direct censures, imposed by political elites (for example “unsuitable” interview parts or omitted statements that are literally cut out or changed from certain interviews). Violated internal relationships and lack of mutual understanding, including collegial solidarity amongst journalists, the absence of public support, represent and display some of many aggravating circumstances, as far as the work satisfaction and professionalism are concerned.
In specific environments, such as BiH, inside relatively unsettled and messy media market, the importance of preserving journalists’ integrity and dignity is imposed as an imperative and it is certain that this assignment and duty should be a top priority for most media professionals. It is clear that terms including “journalists’ integrity and dignity” are rather complex, so the positioning of journalists and their statuses in BiH should necessarily include the three mentioned, outlined and highlighted aspects: working conditions, that is, work and legal relations, socioeconomic segment and professional challenges that journalists in BiH encounter and face on daily basis.
This text is a part of E-Bulletin– eighth edition of special serial of BHN online bulletin implemented through the “Media and Public Reputation” (origin. “Mediji i javni ugled”) project, also representing a contribution to public debate regarding the transparency of media ownership and upholding and encouraging the passing of set of laws aimed to advance media field and information market in BiH.