It may sound unbelievable, but the message is clear. Over the past five days, the most-read online portals and most-watched television stations in Bosnia and Herzegovina have published 280 articles and aired 1,120 minutes of content directed against the leadership of Republika Srpska.
The narrative: the situation is dire, everyone is threatening us, we are isolated, things have never been worse — all wrapped into 1,120 minutes and 280 articles. This amount of content was published by just six media outlets — two from Republika Srpska and four from Sarajevo.
Regarding television content, we monitored video platforms between May 19 and 23, covering one outlet from Republika Srpska and five from Sarajevo.
Out of 280 articles, 114 were published by the two media outlets based in Republika Srpska. The content does not differ significantly from those in the Federation of BiH. The primary voices in these articles, which directly attacked the leadership of Republika Srpska and Milorad Dodik, were Nebojša Vukanović, Igor Crnadak, Jelena Trivić, and Denis Bećirović.
One of the two RS-based outlets also published statements from Republika Srpska officials, while the other exclusively ran pieces aimed at criminalizing the SNSD and the leadership of Republika Srpska.
As for video content, RS media aired 627 minutes — or 10 hours and 45 minutes — of footage that offered space for attacks on the political leadership of Republika Srpska. Of that total, 238 minutes consisted of opposition speeches during the session of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska. Although some individuals offered constructive suggestions during the session, only those speeches that directly criticized the leadership and accused them of dismantling Republika Srpska were highlighted.
In the Federation of BiH, we selected the most influential and widely read portals. The most popular among them published 56 articles in which opposition politicians from Republika Srpska — Vukanović, Crnadak, and Trivić — attacked Dodik.
Among them, Denis Bećirović was also prominently featured, with statements blaming the leadership of Republika Srpska for the political and economic challenges in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The week began with stories about an alleged economic collapse in Republika Srpska, transitioned into commentary from the National Assembly session, and ended with coverage of the non-paper. The main message of the latter: Republika Srpska is being isolated by Germany and France because of Dodik.
Vukanović was the most quoted person in Sarajevo-based media, especially with his anecdote claiming that after Dodik’s speech in the National Assembly, many delegates rushed to the restroom “to relieve themselves.” This story was so well-received in Sarajevo that Vukanović appeared on the front pages of all the portals analyzed.
Why are we writing this? Because we’ve read before about the economic collapse of Republika Srpska, about debts that will allegedly destroy it. When? Last year, the year before, nearly every year around this time. We’ve read about isolation supposedly on par with that experienced by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the 1990s. Yet at the same time, Dodik is in Moscow with Putin and Xi Jinping, while Cvijanović is in the United States.
And that’s all perfectly fine — media outlets have the right to interpret events in their own way. But still, this might be just a bit too much.
Source: ATV
