Vecernje Novosti

On March 5, the Serbian authorities merged the high circulation Serbian daily newspaper, Vecernje Novosti, with the state-controlled publishing house Borba. The official pretext was "irregularities in privatisation process", the same pretext used by the authorities to take over Borba and Ekonomska Politika. Although the employees and shareholders made belligerent noises prior to the takeover, once it took place, the "resistance" evaporated. Dusan Cukic was appointed for a new director of the paper and immediately introduced strict censorship of articles. According to Danas, only one journalist resigned in protest of the takeover. Although it followed the pro-government line in the early nineties, since 1996 Novosti has adopted a much more evenhanded editorial policy. It provided basically fair coverage of the opposition political parties and the authorities, nevertheless sticking to the "patriotic" discourse in connection with Kosovo and foreign powers. The paper maintins a web site with a selection of articles from the printed edition.


YUPATpress
Last Update 11/26/2006