Exposed before the public: they now describe the constitutional right to bring legal action to protect one’s reputation and honor, as well as the publication of evidence and documents, as “legal and online violence” – in an attempt to establish a system in which certain BH journalists may publicly spread any falsehood without accountability, while anyone who publishes a rebuttal or seeks a judicial determination of the truth is branded an enemy of press freedom
THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION – AGAINST THE ABUSE OF JOURNALISM
EDITOR’S COMMENTARY
By Danijel Senkić, journalist and Editor-in-Chief of Dokumentovano.ba
BH JOURNALISTS “COUNTED MORE THAN A HUNDRED” POSTS PUBLISHED BY OTHERS, YET PROVIDED THE PUBLIC WITH NOT A SINGLE PIECE OF EVIDENCE THAT WHAT THEY HAD WRITTEN WAS TRUE
As the saying goes, fear magnifies everything.
The latest statement issued by the BH Journalists Association shows just how large and dangerous documents, journalistic questions and lawsuits may appear to those who are being asked to allow a court to determine what is true and what constitutes defamation.
The BH Journalists Association claims that, over the past two and a half months, Mirnes Ajanović and the Dokumentovano.ba portal have published “more than one hundred articles, comments and other pieces of inflammatory and manipulative content.”
More than a hundred?
Let them publish them.
For each one, let them provide the exact headline, date, author, the specific inflammatory sentence and the fact they claim is false.
Because one hundred documents—even if that many were published—do not become violence simply because someone does not want the public to read the truth and see the evidence.
One hundred questions do not become incitement simply because someone has no answers to them.
And one hundred published facts do not become false merely because someone has (mis)counted them and declared them a campaign.
EXPOSED FOR DEFAMATORY CONDUCT—NOW THEY ARE COUNTING POSTS
The BH Journalists Association has failed to answer even the simplest questions.
What specific threat did Mirnes Ajanović make against any journalist?
Whom did he intimidate?
By what action did he harass anyone?
Which article published by Dokumentovano.ba is false?
Which sentence is inflammatory?
Which piece of evidence was manipulated?
Instead of providing answers, a new campaign has been launched against Mirnes Ajanović, both as an attorney and as a politician, while the Dokumentovano.ba portal and those of us working for it are mentioned almost in passing in an attempt to create the appearance of some alleged “coordinated political pressure.”
When there are no answers to the documents, they count the posts.
When there is no rebuttal of the published facts, the author is declared an enemy of journalists and press freedom.
When there is no evidence supporting publicly made accusations, a lawsuit seeking to have those accusations proven before a court is branded a SLAPP suit, pressure and violence.
JOURNALISTS DO NOT HAVE A LICENCE TO SPREAD FALSEHOODS
Freedom of the press does not mean the right to defame anyone.
It does not mean the right to portray someone as leading a campaign of smears, targeting, intimidation and harassment against journalists, and then refuse to identify a single specific act by which such conduct was allegedly committed—unless the ladies and gentlemen among (certain) journalists are troubled by every citizen’s constitutional right to bring a lawsuit seeking protection from defamation.
A journalist has the right to investigate, criticise and ask uncomfortable questions.
But journalists, editors and journalists’ associations are also responsible for every word publicly spoken, written or republished. They must themselves be prepared to face reasoned criticism, rebuttals and the publication of evidence. They must also accept the possibility of being sued when they spread falsehoods—unless some of them believe they should be above the law.
The problem arises when individuals attempt to create a special rule for themselves, under which a journalist may publish any allegation whatsoever, while anyone who rebuts it or publishes evidence showing that the statement is false is immediately portrayed as an attacker on press freedom.
If someone publishes a rebuttal—they are exerting pressure.
If someone publishes documents and evidence—they are targeting journalists.
If someone files a lawsuit—they are intimidating journalists.
If someone asks a court to establish the truth—they are committing violence, particularly if they announce online that the lawsuit has been filed.
This is no longer the protection of journalism.
It is an attempt to establish unlawful immunity and untouchability for journalists.
PROTECTING JOURNALISM—or PROTECTING THE POLITICAL ACTIVITIES OF THOSE IN POWER?
The Dokumentovano.ba media portal did not scrutinise Anisa Mahmutović because she is a journalist, nor did it scrutinise the activities of the BH Journalists Association merely because it represents journalists.
What was scrutinised was Anisa Mahmutović’s public involvement in processes with serious political, educational and budgetary consequences for Tuzla Canton—particularly because she had been engaged as an SDA journalist, as evidenced by dozens of articles published on the official websites of the SDA Tuzla City Board and the SDA Tuzla Canton Board.
Link:https://sdatuzla.ba/author/anisam/
Arhiva se proteže na više stranica:
https://sdatuzla.ba/author/anisam/page/2/
https://sdatuzla.ba/author/anisam/page/3/
https://sdatuzla.ba/author/anisam/page/4/
Or do the BH Journalists Association and Anisa Mahmutović consider the above to be untrue?
Very well. If it is untrue, why have they not sued us for publishing false information—or at least stated in any of their public posts that it is false—particularly since they publicly criticise both Dokumentovano.ba and Mirnes Ajanović for stating that Anisa Mahmutović is an SDA associate?
We leave it to the Court of Public Opinion to determine what is true.
What is therefore indisputable is that Dokumentovano.ba published documents and arguments which, in the editorial board’s assessment, raise the question of whether Anisa Mahmutović’s activities as a “university expert” were undertaken exclusively in the public interest or whether they objectively served the interests of the SDA and the government led by that party in Tuzla Canton.
Particular attention was given to decisions and activities which, according to the published estimates, could have consequences for the Tuzla Canton budget amounting to at least BAM 300 million, and possibly substantially more—even as much as BAM 700 million.
When hundreds of millions of marks in public funds are being invested in the Campus project—a project for which SDA Prime Minister Irfan Halilagić himself has pointed to the problem of a lack of students—a journalist’s job is not to remain silent.
A journalist’s job is to publish the document and ask the question: Is all of this proper, and is there any “IMT” involved—any personal unlawful interest on anyone’s part?
Instead of independently verifying the published allegations and documents, the BH Journalists Association institutionally joined the defence of Anisa Mahmutović, thereby placing itself on one side of a political and legal dispute.
The BH Journalists Association is now attempting to escape the scandalous public position it took—whereby, in the name of its members, it sided with a single political actor, namely the SDA-led government in Tuzla Canton—by sinking deeper into its own mire: branding every response as “targeting,” every document as “manipulation,” and every lawsuit filed before a court as “violence.”
It will not succeed.
Not through pressure on freedom of expression.
Not through complaints to the Central Election Commission.
Not through letters to international organisations.
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES!
DANIJEL SENKIĆ: I HAVE BEEN A JOURNALIST SINCE 1994
The BH Journalists Association places particular emphasis on my involvement in the Human Rights Protection Commission of the Tuzla City Council, while falsely stating that I am the Deputy President of BOSS. The truth is that I am the Deputy Chair of that Commission.
None of this has ever been concealed.
What they fail to mention, however, is that I have worked continuously and on a daily basis as a journalist since 10 April 1994, when I began working as a journalist at Radio Soli in Tuzla—and that I have remained in journalism to this day and will continue to do so in the future.
Among other things, I also served for ten years as editor of the Dosije.ba portal, the only portal entered in the Register of Public Media in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
My political involvement, which I do not conceal—unlike a certain “independent” SDA journalist who attempts to conceal her own political involvement—does not erase more than three decades of my journalistic work.
It does not prohibit me from analysing documents.
It does not deprive me of the right to ask questions.
And it does not turn a journalistic article into an election campaign.
If the BH Journalists Association claims that anything published was false—let it prove it.
THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION CONTINUES
The public is now increasingly recognising a pattern in which certain journalists abuse journalism and, in doing so, have exposed themselves before the public:
First, a serious falsehood is published against someone in the interests of those in power.
When the person publicly accused issues a rebuttal, they are immediately accused of exerting pressure on journalists.
If that person dares to respond and invoke the right to publish a rebuttal, a campaign is launched to discredit them.
When they file a lawsuit before a court, they are portrayed as an enemy of press freedom who “smears,” “targets,” “harasses,” and “intimidates and discredits media professionals.”
And when they refuse to withdraw the lawsuit, they are declared to be someone who commits “legal and online violence” against journalists.
It is precisely for this reason that the Dokumentovano.ba media portal is continuing its series:
THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION – AGAINST THE ABUSE OF JOURNALISM
We will publish documents.
We will publish the disputed statements.
We will publish the lawsuits and the responses to those lawsuits.
The BH Journalists Association, Anisa Mahmutović and anyone else remain openly invited to submit their facts, evidence and responses. They will be published in full and without alteration.
Let the public see for itself who publishes documents and evidence—and who publishes falsehoods.
Who asks questions—and who flees from them in panic.
Who asks a court to establish the truth—and who paranoically brands even the possibility of a judicial determination of the truth as violence against journalists.
Fear may magnify everything.
But the documents published by Dokumentovano.ba remain exactly the same size.