“The author was watching the evening news on state television with his colleague who, being a war correspondent, had just returned to Belgrade after an assignment in central Yugoslavia. The father of this colleague was also present; he was an educated man, who, however, loudly expressed his agreement with the simplistic and one-sided propaganda news items. Embarrassed, my colleague tried to make his father aware of the contradictions and all too obvious misrepresentations. When this did not meet with agreement, he asked his father whom he actually believed, the state-controlled television or him, his son, who had just seen the war at first hand. ‘The television, of course,’ answered his father without hesitating. When he saw the tears in his son’s eyes he added, ‘But surely you can appreciate I do not need the television to know what is really going on?’”
