Bosnia has good laws regulating work in media, but those are not always applied as they should be, psychologist and commentator Srdjan Puhalo told N1 on Monday.

“There are currently demands for journalists to be treated as public officials, we also lack a law which would reveal who the true owners of the media in Bosnia and Herzegovina are. There are shortcomings when it comes to advertising and financing,” he said, but added that “in principle, the laws are not bad but there is space for improvement.”

There is a lot of pressure for journalists working in the country, Puhalo stressed.

“On the one hand, there is the pressure of creating news daily, on the other hand there is pressure coming from editors, media owners, clients for advertising and the public,” he said, adding that young journalists need to be aware that society expects of them to do their job as well as possible.

“They need to be ready and figure out whether they want to be only those holding microphones or journalists who ask questions which may sometimes be uncomfortable, and whether they want to be in service of society or work for certain power centres,” he said.

Puhalo pointed out that there were 48 journalists who requested help because of various attacks this year.

“The more secure the system is, the more brutal the attacks become, and if there is no reaction to those attacks by the system, then the message is being sent that it can be done without any repercussions,” he said.