Draxblog III

Wasted Freedom

Two years after Feral Tribune became history, another icon of Croatian indepedent journalism is going down. And, unlike Feral, which arguably never had large popular following, this one had much better credentials as Croatian "beacon of democracy". Few Croatian institutions brought 120.000 men to the streets (argubaly the greatest public protest in Croatian history) like Radio 101 did in November 1996.

Yet, for all of its glory and heroism, Radio 101, just like so many heroes of "interesting times", had trouble adapting to new, more banal and mundane democracy. Most of the informed people pointed towards large scale financial mismanagement, allegedly by very heroes who bulit their reputations on Glorious November 1996.

In many ways what happened to Radio 101 is not very different from what is happening with Croatia.Heroically and "gloriously" won freedom is slowly and unceremoniously wasted away due to corruption, greed and incompetence.

She Is *Not* Blanka Vlasic!

When something looks too good to be true, it usually isn't true. Many careers and reputations in journalism and elsewehere could have been saved if people were more careful. Index.hr - which briefly attempted to repeat its 2004 Severina scoop - is now forced to apologise over its excess enthusiasm in reporting alleged Blanka Vlašić (Blanka Vlasic) sex tape. The alleged video file is nothing more than skilfully edited clip belonging to much bigger video file available on porn websites since 2008. The file clearly shows the female participant of sex activity not being Croatian athlete.

Index.hr, on the other hand, shouldn't be blamed too much for jumping to conclusion, since Ms. Vlašić in the past had compromising intimate photos of her leaked to the Internet. The incident, which happened foru years ago, and was mentioned in this blog. The post, named Et tu, fillia Blanka? is probably responsible why the number of hits to Draxblog III jumped to unprecedented numbers.

Croatian Women Volleyball Team in Action

My attempts to revive this blog so far left a lot to be desired. I guess one of the reasons might be found in generally depressive or, at best, utterly serious tone of this blog's content. So, I when opportunity rose for something completely different, or, at least, a content that anyone - except the most prudish - would find amusing I decided to take it.

One such opportunity is a Youtube video featuring Maja Poljak, Mirela Delić, Sanja Popović and Senna Ušić - members of Croatian Women Volleyball team. The team didn't have much success at the latest European Championship, but that apparently didn't affect their spirit or ability to compensate their poor athletic results with impressive display of other talents.

Needless to say, this video received great deal of publicity in all Croatian media. It is really refreshing to see a news story that finally doesn't have anything to do with bad state of Croatian economy, corrupt and inefficient government, crime, Ustashas vs. Partisans or... Unfortunately, since the artist providing the musical background happens to be Bosnian Serb singer Mile Kitić, I'm certain that some prudish commentators would find ample reasons to associate words like "national disgrace", "treason", "depravity" or "rape of Croatian culture" with the video.

RIP Gordan Franić Futa

Gordan Franić Futa, television enthusiast best known as the founder of first private TV station in former Yugoslavia, has died in Split after long bout with cancer.

Futa was, according to most testimonies, an extraordinary man, always ready to do things most of Split people couldn't or wouldn't dare to do. He was avid car racer and once took part in rock climbing expedition in Himalayas. However, his best known achievement was TV Marjan, TV station named after famous Marjan Hill over the city where its transmitter was set in 1984.

For the most part of its existence, TV Marjan was nothing more than convenient way for Split people to watch TV programme other than two channels of state-owned Radiotelevizija Zagreb (future Croatian Television). Until that time, some of those lucky enough to have dwellings on proper locations had special antenna amplifiers that allowed them to watch dozens of Italian TV stations, often with atrocious picture quality and sometimes even worse content.

Futa provided alternative by airing satellite programmes. That way, generations of Split citizens were for the first time accustomed to worldviews different to the official ideology of former Yugoslavia. Among satellite channels being aired were Super Channel, Sky Channel and MTV, an in 1980s Futa aired film channels like Swiss Teleclub (with US films dubbed in German) and Dutch FilmNet (with Dutch subtitles).

Futa, however, had to justify its brave experiment and prevent authorities from shutting TV station down (which they, occasionally, did). He did that by interrupting satellite channels with public service announcements, including calls for elections. During holidays there were also basic attempts of original programming made in improvised studios.

TV Marjan began with something resembling regular programming on February 20th 1990, few months before first democratic elections. It was, therefore, the very first TV station to air interview with future president Franjo Tuđman.

Futa's enthiusiasm and technical know-how, like in case in many great pioneers, weren't matched by his business and political skills. Transition between two socio-economic systems also didn't help and by Summer of 1991 Futa was involved in increasingly nasty dispute with his former associates who briefly managed to run new TV station without him. Futa used escalation of war as an opportunity to get back into saddle; with the help of new Croatian government and its emergency powers, he simply took over TV station. Thus he took part in TV Marjan's most glorious moment - providing Croatian Television signal via satellite after the regular transmitters were knocked out by JNA air force in Autumn 1991.

TV Marjan continued to air during the war, later operating as a regular local TV station. In 1993 it got first competition in the form of CATV, cable television that would later become TV Jadran. In 1996 this pushed TV Marjan to ally itself with TV Mreža, first Croatian private TV network. On the surface, this move made sense. However, TV Marjan was run by Miroslav Kutle, infamous and controversial tycoon responsible for ruining dozens of big business during 1990s privatisation. TV Mreža didn't fare any better - it folded, and TV Marjan with it. Futa's life work thus went off the air, and great chapter of Croatian cultural history thus ended.

Futa outlived his TV Marjan for a decade. New generations - with no clips of TV Marjan at YouTube - probably won't understand how his work was so important. But Croatia still needs people like him - those with enthusiasm, courage and ability to bring new and exciting things.

Another Romantic Revolutionary Ends in Bolivia

Hungarian media reports that one of the men killed by Bolivian police while allegedly plotting to assassinate plot against Evo Morales is Eduardo Rozsa-Flores, former Latin American leftist revolutionary who fought on the side of Croatia as leader of international volunteers during Patriotic War 1991. Those exploits were covered in Chico, 2001 film in which Rozsa-Flores played the main character - his alter ego. (Hungarian link).

Thirty Minutes Over Slavonski Brod

Ana Tenžera finally decided to try telling her side of a sad story. So far, the only media willing to assist her in such endeavour happens to be mojtv.hr, news portal dedicated to television-related themes. They quote Tenžera's letter in which she tells that she indeed did "something stupid", but she also tries to explain circumstances under which such fiasco came to be.

In short, it was all due to her having to prepare news in less than 30 minutes. She claims that her editor told her to make report about "pollution in (Slavonski) Brod". In reality it was air pollution, not water pollution. Tenžera claims that she "did other stories" and hadn't got a clue about Slavonski Brod situation. She made quick search over Internet and found the fatal months-old story.

Tenžera says that she is ready to take her part of responsibility, yet she can't understand how news editors and anchors couldn't have found anything wrong with the story nor how could they - and especially her superiors - evade any consequences.

Well, it is actually easy to understand such aftermath of Slavonski Brod fiasco. In such scandalous affaires low-profile, invisible operators are less convenient scapegoats than ultra-visible media stars whose replacement sometimes can be better PR than their hiring.

Sacking of Ana Tenžera: Croatian Journalist Dynasty to End?

Times when I used to extensively watch RTL Televizija are definitely behind me. So, on February 25th I missed the opportunity to witness one of the major events in Croatian journalism - Ana Tenžera reporting about water pollution in the city of Slavonski Brod.

There was nothing particularly wrong about that report, except from a tiny detail that caused mayor Mirko Duspara to threaten RTL Televizija with lawsuit.

Ms. Tenžera, who recently became 5th sexiest Croatian woman according to Globus magazine jury, apparently didn't bother to check her sources. The sources in question, according to RTL Televizija, were web reports, which happened to be four months old. In other words, Tenžera browsed the web, found what looked like scoop and made television report about it, without checking the dates.

RTL Televizija - and veteran readers of this blog are probably aware of it - had its moments in the past, but this proved to be too much even for them. Ana Tenžera was quickly, publicly and unceremoniously sacked, with RTL brass issuing apology after apology and promising that such fiasco would never happen again.

What makes this story rise above just another sad example of professional standards in contemporary Croatian media is the fact that Ana Tenžera happened to be the daughter of Veselko Tenžera, one of the greatest personalities in history of Croatian journalism, after which prestigious journalistic award is named. It appears unlikely that Tenžera would continue family tradition. 

I must admit that I'm tempted to make further comments about this affair, but that probably won't happen due to some reasons I'm not at liberty to reveal. 

Translation, Shranslation

Nothing wrong with this article. Except the title, which completely changes its point.

Business.hr attacked by malware!

I interrupt my blogging silence with what appears to be dramatic news about Croatian media institution. Business.hr, online edition of eponymous Croatian business newspaper, is unavailable due to its site being infested by malware. T-Zombix, Croatian blogger extraordinaire, investigated the matter and displayed his findings in this post.

It appears that everyone who happens to visit the site might get infected with something called
Mal/Iframe-G.

T-Zombix suspects that the "Youth" (in other words, Croatian Democratic Union Youth activists/astroturfers) got angry due to their inability to spam articles comments with pro-Sanader material.

On the other hand, this isn't the first incident that major Croatian news portal got offline due to malicious activity. In December, index.hr was unavailable for two days due to DDOS attack. .

UPDATE:

T-Portal is, so far, the only news portal that bothered to report this news.

End of an Era in Croatian Journalism

Tomorrow all major Croatian dailies are rasising their prices. Instead of 6 HRK, like they used to be since 2000, they are going to cost 7 HRK.

The inflation has finally caught up with the media industry. On the other hand, since I happen to remember some older, not so good, times, I'm satisfied as long as the prices are in single digits.

On a related note, Đermano Ćićo Senjanović, popular humorist from Split and long-time columnist for Slobodna Dalmacija daily, is tomorrow going to publish his first column for Novi list, Rijeka daily.