Balkan Insight, SE Times, Deutche Welle and RFERL are in English and Croatian (and the rest of the languages that were codified centuries after Croatian).

However the one media that sticks out in my opinion is Balkan Insight: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/page/all-balkans-home.

It is widely read amongst NGOs and by Western policy makers (especially U.S.), and it is undeniably shaping some perceptions amongst those that matter - with its articles and its journalists cited by the sources mentioned above.

The problem is that the Seral Tribune generation and like-minded individuals like Drago Hedl, Boris Pavelic and others are writing for it.

Their writing style is different in BI as compared to the Yugoslav nationalist socialist rags they write for in Croatia which are all tabloids (which, unfortunately, nearly all Croatian media outlets are). BI obviously forces them to keep editorializing their hard news coverage to a minimum - which gives them an air of professional legitimacy and even neutrality, which we all know not to be the case.

Obvious, the careful reader sees their fallacies, especially the omniscient fallacy of suppression (just take the Vukovar article from today: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article ... youngsters), but the uninformed or loosely (mis)informed Westerner does not see this.

The BI narrative about the war is more or less the same that is spread from Belgrade and or Sarajevo - all sides are guilty, Oluja "ethnic cleansing," Croatia "divided Bosnia" etc., and or exaggerations (the mantra about "600" Serb dead still repeated in almost every article regarding Operation Storm).

In the case of Gotovina and Markac, a barage of negative / slanted analysis were spewed after the ruling (http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/hague-failed-to-justify-gotovina-acquittal; http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/hague-verdict-shows-it-is-good-to-be-criminal).

Not to even mention the coverage of the ongoing problems in B&H, the total information blockade on their actual origins (see the first fluffy analysis linked below), and the endless Bosniak ultranationalist / AVNOJ B&H nationalist socialist unitarist trolling that accompanies all of these analyses and articles (http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/how-to-finally-end-the-war-in-bosnia, http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/bosnians-seek-employment-abroad) that involve B&H and B&H Croats.

We have to ask ourselves why haven't Croatians in HRHB, Croatia or Croatians worldewide been able to create, if not a print (which is dying anyway), then at least an online English-language news source with serious analysis, even if only weekly or biweekly, to cover the stories that the mainstream B&H media, the Yugoslav nationalist socialist / WAZ and other foreign-owned media in Croatia, and "regional" and Western owned regional media (BI) consistently ignore - which are detrimental to both Croatian and HRHB Croatian interests (in the case of HRHB Croats, existential interests)?

Why aren't well to do Croatians trying to fund such an endeavor?

Americro: I agree that English language media about Croatia is abysmal, and I think this is an example of where the Croatian Diaspora can be a big help to Croatia.

Considering that Croatia is on the verge of joining the EU it is unacceptable that say HRT does not have an English language department or channel that covers things in Croatia and the region. Al Jazeera is in English, so is Deutsche Welle, and Russia Today, so it wouldn't be like we're inventing something new. In the interest of fairness this also applies to Croatian media outlets in BiH as well.

We have plenty of people who natively speak English that could create news programs, talk shows and the like. I would also argue that if there were an English language channel on HRT, I would have Croatian TV shows, movies dubbed or subtitled into English. I would also have sports coverage in English and have say a weekly show featuring the best Croatian music videos with an English speaking host. We can have people with American accents, Canadian accents, British, Irish, New Zealand, etc reading the news or hosting talk shows. They don't even have to be of Croatian background, just willing to report on things in and around Croatia.

This would be much better than Ingrid Antičević Marinović reading the news in English.

Maybe the web page for a proposed channel has blogs that are in English and regularly updated...

...in a small way that's what we've been trying to do with the English language forum here. We've tried to summarize big issues, encourage a Croatian point of view on others, and on occasion generate unique discussions relating to Croatians.

We just have to keep moving forward.

Americro:

You've seen me posting at Balkan Insight under the moniker "Niccolo and Donkey".

That strikes me as naive. None of this coverage is market driven and all of these outlets would fold but for politicaly motivated financing. The journalists writing for them write exactly what their financiers want them to write. It is not the people writing for BI who are the source of the problem you see, but the people paying them. As they say: He who pays the piper calls the tune.

I don't see how it is naive.

They provide news in English and it appears at first glance, to the entirely uninformed or less informed, "objective" and "authentic," i.e. from the region.

They are writing exactly what their anti-Croatian / anti-fact financiers want them to write - that is my point.

The beltway agencies, other media, and English speaking world universities are using them as a primary source of information - there is a reason where there has been a near total information blockade on the actual facts-on-the-ground in HRHB.

There is no one getting any Croatian, specifically HRHB Croatian, points across, save this beautiful fact nuke that no one in Croatia or regional media is reporting on (BI obviously conveniently ignoring or suppressing it): http://www.transconflict.com/2013/02/th ... ation-182/ that was and remains unfortunately an exception to the norm and not the norm.

I think that hercegbosna.com is a good, already existing platform to get the HRHB Croat message out there on a regular basis to the English speaking world. It is actually critical and essential as there is no lobby for HRHB interests.

I would be willing to devote time and could likely find other contributors to donate time (and would call on all English speakers / writers to find / devote time) to contribute to any aspect of hercegbosna.com content.

I think with the amount of English-speakers and writers in the Diaspora (and in Croatia and HRHB itself, especially amongst the university students far smarter than most of us) is a bottomless talent pool and human network that reaches, through typical Croatian 6 degrees of separation, all the way to Wall Street, the Beltway, Brussels and LA's film industry.

The Diaspora is an untapped resource that I would kindly suggest Ministry of Sound, Hroabatos and the Hercegbosna.org crew reach out to and ask for help from.

So are the thousands of students at Uni Mostar. Allow them to write anonymously or under their names to build their resumes and writing samples. Give them a venue to refine their skills, and start what we would hope to be long careers.

For starters, in terms of getting more English content, I would suggest that on the English page the above-linked fact bomb be added to the English webpage and archived in the "Current issues" drop down; if not create a new "FBiH Crisis" dropdown with this as the always-present introduction, at least as a link - keep it on top as long as possible.

I would also suggest putting together an emailing list to all major news organizations and think tanks and email them all new content / articles that appear on the website.

Third, and this is a more long term project, I would highly recommend Novem and some of the other TV / Video guys consider putting together a chronological documentary (using Lt. Col. Dr. Charles Schrader's seminal work and Marasovac's superhuman effort's collection of facts about genocidal ABiH aggression against Croats 1992-1994)

I think both Gordon Bardos and Lt. Col. Dr. Charles Schrader would be more than willing to do skype interviews and there is software out there that can be used to record video and audio on skype.

I volunteer myself for all of the above - any more English-speaking takers?

Dear Americro,

this is definitely the most ambitious and useful proposal in a very long time!

Congratulations on the determination shown! I think that HercegBosna.org crew shouldn't miss this chance.

I am not a native English speaker and way off the required level of English proficiency, but I'll be willing to help you with putting together an e-mailing list you mentioned as a first step in your project.

Cheers,
Glazbenik

A very interesting proposal.

AmeriCro: I think you have a great idea. There are groups you can reach out to in the U.S. via social media. I bet with over 20,000 on the HB facebook group you might find a few takers as well.

Good idea, in the meantime:

SERBIA TO MANIPULATE UN DOCUMENT IN APRIL 10, 2013

On June 2, 1993, Serbia submitted (now entirely discredited) propaganda report to the United Nations entitled: "Memorandum on War Crimes and Crimes of Genocide in Eastern Bosnia (communes of Bratunac, Skelani and Srebrenica) committed against the Serbian population from April 1992 to April 1993".
http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.ca/ ... ganda.html
Almost 20 years later, they are using exactly the same tricks to purport their propaganda as official U.N. conclusions.
Serbian extremists and genocide deniers have scheduled a debate in the United Nations General Assembly for April 10, 2013. The topic will be the work of The International Criminal Tribunal that prosecuted Serbs for war crimes, crimes of mass rape, crimes against humanity and Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The debate was scheduled by a temporary UN General Assembly President, Serbian diplomat Vuk Jeremić under the direction of nationalists in Belgrade.
Jeremić, as the temporary president of the UN General Assembly is authorized to draft an official UN document after the debate. The 'official' document is expected to contain Serbian perspective of wars in former Yugoslavia at the expense of facts and justice.
Recently, Jeremić was responsible for organizing a concert at the UN with a performance of a nationalist militant Serbian song "March on the Drina."
http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.ca/ ... en-to.html

Serbian president Tomislav Nikolic, who is a radical nationalist and outspoken Srebrenica genocide denier, will also take the podium in a debate.
(from Srebrenica Genocide)

Specifically you stated:



This implied the presence of these journalists specifically is "the problem". I do not think that is correct. The core problem is what these journalists are expected to write by their financiers. But the journalists themselves are perfectly capable of writing from a different angle.

That is to say if you were their employer it is unlikely their presence at your outlet would be a problem as they would adapt their output to your expectations.

My point was speaking of two Croatian journalists as the problem behind all of this was giving them too much credit. Actually they're non-entities.

I suggest you to contact [email protected] and offer them translation services (Croatian => English) for their articles, because it is a portal with in-depth analyses of various aspects of life in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Check them: http://www.idpi.ba/