From the address of Zoran Udovicic, founder and president of Media Plan Institute, during the ceremony marking the 10 th anniversary of Media Plan, in Sarajevo on May 31, 2005.
The Media Plan idea was born back during the years of war and siege of Sarajevo . Every day we sent news from Sarajevo to France , to our friends: about civil resistance, about independent media, about whether Bosnia can be a normal and democratic country once the war stops. News was sent out by ham radio operators and satellite fax and once in France it was multiplied in thousands of copies for French people and for our people gathered in more than 200 associations actively helping Bosnia . We called this service Sarajevo Fax. The first wartime newsroom consisted of Silva Vujovic, Zija Dizdarevic, Jasna Korda and Mirko Houdek. Our friends in Paris were gathered in Association Sarajevo: Faik Dizdarevic, Maurice Lazar, Louis de la Ronciere, and many others, devoted and committed to Media Plan.
Sarajevo Fax continues to work today. It is one of Media Plan's services, specializing in coverage of diversity, human rights and post-conflict issues, in cooperation with a number of partner organizations in South East Europe.
Some time later, with Muhamed Nuhic, Milan Trivic, Mirza Huskic, Ivan Kordic and several other journalists from Sarajevo television, we organized a three-month school for TV reporters.
Breaking down communication barriers
The third big challenge came. SOROS foundation offered us to do the first media landscape of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Those working with me were Rade Budalic, Muhamed Nuhic , and a very capable man and journalist, the late Nikodije Stojanovic, who, I don't know how, managed to provide most of the information about media controlled by Serb forces and so-called Herceg Bosna. That's when we found out that behind confrontation lines, in Banja Luka , there was a small, brave group of journalists who resisted the regime and launched the first independent paper in the Republika Srpska – Prelom. The media landscape from that year 1995 was perhaps the first comprehensive post-war document, made by local forces, about Bosnia-Herzegovina as a whole. We were convinced that the psychological threshold of distrust, which was to really burden us for many years after the war, could be overcome if something concrete was done, despite the risk, with people close to you, who share your ideas, and with those with similar ideas, but also with those who don't have to agree with you on everything, if you can work well together. That's why soon after the signing of the Dayton Agreement, already in the spring of 1996, we set up two Media Plan centers – in Banja Luka and Mostar. In downtown Banja Luka one morning the following plate appeared – Media Plan Sarajevo . Many residents of Banja Luka passed by it in disbelief, but soon it became a well-visited place in town, where one could read press from all of B&H, where perhaps nostalgic memories from prewar times could be brought up, and where first courses and seminars for journalists started. And, just a few days later, the same plate in the completely desolate, razed to the ground, Santiceva Street in Mostar. Those who worked in these centers were Gordana Katana, Radmila Karlas and Sunita Sukalo from Banja Luka, and in Mostar Dzemo Sunje, Slavo Kukic and Elijas Milojevic Ortez, a Chilean man of our origin, who came from Spain towards the end of the war to help Media Plan.
Thus, the communication barricade in Bosnia-Herzegovina was broken. But, for a long time news still had to go from Sarajevo to Banja Luka and the other way around via Paris , where it was transferred to one or the other side by Darko Udovicic, our connection with numerous friends in Paris and Brussels .
Thanks to a developed network of associates from all over B&H, as soon as it established Media Plan started doing permanent media monitoring, which was used until 1998 as the main source of evaluations for the international community and election organizers in B&H. Radenko Udovicic and the late Bozo Bojic were the first analysts and monitors and were later joined by Drago Soldo, Mirko Sagolj, Slavko Nastic and Slavko Santic from Sarajevo, Azrija Piralic from Bihac, Faruk Krusevljanin from Tuzla… The monitoring center, which worked with our first foreign partner – London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), developed into an analysis center whose analyses and evaluations are today very respected in B&H and the whole region of South East Europe and which today issues a respectable online journal on media – Media Online.
School of high European standards
Still, Media Plan's biggest project, actually our true brand, is the Media Plan High College of Journalism. It was created using the experience of numerous seminars, training and courses which we started organizing back in 1995 and which are today the foundation of our activities. But, establishing the school was something special, something pioneering, something very challenging, optimistic, enthusiastic, courageous, and above all risky. Definition of these goals right after the war: to build a school in line with European standards, to establish practical studies as no other in the region, to make it a regional school both by student composition and participation of lecturers and trainers, to use our example to show that in the same classroom, on the same professional assignment, in the same apartment, in our Sarajevo, we can have living together, socializing and working well together, students from Pale, from Gorazde, from Prijedor and Bihac, Zagreb, Uzice and Novi Sad, Tetovo, Skopje and Kosovska Mitrovica…Our school has shown that this is possible! The seventh generation of students graduated today. They will go to different sides of the region and join a team of some 140 young journalists who are already becoming well-known journalistic names.
One hundred French scholarships
However, despite our optimism, we could not have achieved all this if it had not been for our friends from France, the ones back from the time of war, who helped us and encouraged us to persevere, as well as our post-war partners and donors, whose help and support has been crucial for Media Plan's development. I remember a pleasant man from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France, Mr. Robert Perseil. He was the first one to remove all disbelief in whether we can create a real, big journalism school in Sarajevo . “That's the real thing,” he said and referred us to a trusted French partner – High College of Journalism in Lille , the best and oldest journalism school in France , which today has 80 generations of students behind it. The French government, with the participation of the German government and European Commission, allocated big funds to start the school and provide its financial and technical foundation, premises for work and best lecturers during the last seven years.
Many western countries are giving scholarships to students from the region to go to their countries to study journalism, while the French have done the opposite – they provided more than 100 scholarships for students from South East Europe to come study in Sarajevo . This was an expression of great trust in us, a small private organization with big ambitions and, it seems to me, a rare example in international practice of how equal partnership relations should be established with local institutions.
With a lot of gratitude I must mention Marc Capelle, Jean-Pierre Farjon and Corinne Matras of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pierre-Emmanuel Pessemier of the French embassy in Sarajevo, and of course, the entire team of the High College of Journalism from Lille led by its director Loic Hervouet, with whom I signed a new three-year cooperation agreement this morning.
Adjusting to market-driven conditions
And what else is Media Plan Institute doing today? It is a recognized organization in the field of communications, which studies and applies European standards and has numerous partners and associates in the world, which makes us competitive not just in the South East European region, but also on the world communications market. The South East European Communications University , which we organize every other year, has become the largest communication forum of its kind in this part of Europe . We are members of a number of international consortiums for implementing European Union communication projects in countries in transition. We apply our media and communications know-how in Macedonia , Albania , Croatia , Serbia & Montenegro , taking part in implementation of CARDS projects, while with colleagues from Lille we have joint agreements on development of practical journalism studies in Moldova and Iraq . Our press clipping agency today works for many clients in B&H, Croatia , Serbia and the European Union seat. Our technical service with a simultaneous translation system has been used for numerous international meetings in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
At the end of a decade, and in new social and economic circumstances that we operate in, Media Plan, a private organization doing a lot of public interest work, must transform and adjust to new needs of media, public and market-driven conditions. Reduction of international donations for education requires us to seek new sources of funding for our school. We also want to transform the school into studies in line with the Bologna Declaration on Education and be ready for the new state law allowing us to request a state license and official international recognition of our diploma. With this aim in mind, we will continue to develop good partnership relations with media in the region to learn about their interests in relation to journalist education. Media Plan will also transform in organizational terms in order to better develop its present commercial activities and give the High College of Journalism an autonomous position and more opportunity to use sources from public state and international funds.
So, we have a lot of difficult work ahead of us. New challenges are coming in a new time and for new people. My generation, including myself, is leaving this job. I believe that Media Plan's present young, enthusiastic and highly professional team, with numerous associates, will launch new projects and develop a real business in the field of communications. I thank my associates, with whom I work today, for following and developing Media Plan's ideas: Sasa, Radenko, Ljliljana, Bojana, Zehra, Darko, Eta, Snjezana, Jasna, Mirela, Asim, Medina , Almir and Ifeta.
