Croatian Journalists' Leader Promises 'Battle for Integrity'

Freelance investigative journalist Sasa Lekovic, who was elected on Saturday as the president of the association for the next four years, said that the biggest problems for the media in Croatia was the issue of integrity.

"Put simply, the media has lost its integrity; both the media and journalists. Regaining the integrity of the media is therefore the most important task which includes all: the struggle against the 'tabloidization' of media, tackling the conflicts between journalists themselves, etc," Lekovic told BIRN.

He explained that people do not trust journalists and thereforehave  lost the ability to distinguish quality from 'tabloid' journalism.

He said that both journalists and media owners were responsible for the situation.

"First of all, we must be aware that media owners are owners for the purpose of fulfilling their interests, not for the sake of the media itself," he said.

He also said that political influence and corruption had tainted some media, especially privatelly-owned outlets.

Journalists are also victims, he continued, bevause of redundancies and poor wages, but this does not excuse their sometimes unprofessional conduct, he added.

Lekovic said he now faces a series of major tasks.

"First I have to see what is the situation in the association itself, with continuously falling incomes over the years and a falling number of members," he said.

"Secondly, HND and I have to work on the deep divisions existing within journalists in Croatia themselves, who are divided into 'right' and 'left' journalists," he added.

Lekovic has been a journalist since 1979, working for radio, the two biggest Croatian daily newspapers Jutarnji list and Vecernji list, and other media in...