Aljazeera in Balkans

IN THE centre of Sarajevo, Bosnia’s capital, a gleaming piece of Arabic script adorns the top of a new building. This is the logo of Al Jazeera, the Qatari network that has changed the face of television news since it was founded 15 years ago. Inside the building, carpenters and technicians are putting the finishing touches to the offices. But this is not just another foreign bureau. Al Jazeera’s Balkan service goes live on November 11th. This will be the second foreign-language station the network has opened, after Al Jazeera English in 2006. But what language is it? Journalists will be broadcasting in “their” language, say station bosses. This tongue used to be called Serbo-Croatian; now it goes by a number of names: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian or Montenegrin. (Think New Zealand, Scottish and American versions of English.) The target audience for the channel will be the former Serbo-Croatian speaking regions of the ex-Yugoslavia. But plenty of Macedonians and Slovenes understand the language, as do older Kosovo Albanians. Tarik Djodjic, the managing director, says that €15m ($20.5m) has been invested in Al Jazeera Balkans. The channel’s editor, Goran Milic, is linked in the (older) public mind with Yutel, a state-run news station that sought, between 1990 and 1992, to keep Yugoslavia from falling apart. Also based in Sarajevo, the channel died in the shelling. But Mr Milic dismisses any comparison with Yutel. His new venture is privately run, he says: “No one can tell us anything about our editorial decisions.” What is not clear is whether people from one part of the Balkans are still interested in the others. They might enjoy each other’s reality shows. But news broadcasts from Sarajevo, Banja Luka (capital of the Serb part of Bosnia), Belgrade and Zagreb are all utterly different. The channel faces another problem. Many Serbs and Croats will assume it is “Muslim” television. Mr Djodjic concedes that “we will need some time to prove that prejudice wrong.” Milos Solaja, an analyst in Banja Luka, says Bosnian Serbs will watch, but only to see what the other side is thinking. Gordana Igric, who runs the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, says the station has a chance to make an impact. This year the BBC closed its last local-language radio services in the Balkans. The region’s domestic media are dominated by the interests of politicians and tycoons; the few independent outlets are too poor to carry out serious newsgathering. Al Jazeera Balkans has money, and its viewers will also be able to watch subtitled news and documentaries produced by the Arabic and English-language networks. Mr Milic says that when he took the job he was told that Al Jazeera’s only interest in the Balkans was to fill a gap in the market. But the channel’s Arabic service played a key role in the Arab spring earlier this year. What sort of influence Qatar may want, or gain, in the Balkans, is a good question. Read the original story here.