Politika

Politika, as its staff likes to boast, is the oldest media company in the Balkans. The daily was founded in 1904 in Belgrade. It sympathized with the Communists from its early days and grew into the most respected newspaper in the former Yugoslavia. Politika had an impressive network of foreign correspondents and offered unsurpassed coverage of world affairs. However, in the late 80's it became a vehicle in the internecine struggles of Serbian communists. It quickly came under the control of the winning, Milosevic's faction and was soon afterwards turned into one of beacons of nationalist propaganda that prepared the ground for the Yugoslav wars. Politika's journalists were also "cleansed" in several successive purges in the nineties, until only hard-core Milosevic's supporters, led by his confidant Dragan Hadzi Antic, remained in the news and editorial desks. Politika was initially kept away from the direct attacks on the opposition in Serbia and Montenegro, expressing its bias rather by omission. For example, the newspaper failed to report first few weeks of massive protests in Belgrade during 1996. However, lately, Politika has surged to the forefront of the propaganda war against the Serbian opposition. This ignominious era in newspaper's history ended on October 6, 2000, when the first issue of "free" Politika hit the streets with the speech of the new president of Yugoslavia, Vojislav Kostunica, on its front page. The paper is currently run by the striking committee and promises to in the future offer "unbiased and balanced news coverage". Their site contains all articles from the paper edition of Politika and the weekly Ilustrovana Politika.

YUPATpress
Last Update 7/14/2007