BELGRADE, 12.06.2019. – Belgrade newspaper Danas spoke out against what it says are personal insults against N1 TV and its management by the pro-regime web portal Antidot.
Danas recalled that Antidot published what it claimed were the negative conclusions about the station’s editorial policies in an internal report ordered by N1 TV’s owner the KKR investment fund by former BBC News chief James Harding. The daily said that United Media reacted to the claims, saying that an orchestrated campaign was being waged against it to discredit and destroy the few remaining professional media in the country and denying the claims about the report.
The Antidot story claimed that N1 and its owners were waging a campaign against the state-owned Telekom Serbia which bought several small cable operators for what experts said was an excessive price.
The daily asked NIN weekly editor in chief Milan Culibrk for a comment of the Antidot story. Culibrk wanted to know “how big and from who Antidot got a donation to accuse everyone who dared ask how a company, whose majority share-holder is the Serbian government which means the taxpayers, is spending money”.
BIRN editor and Vreme weekly contributor Slobodan Georgiev said the Antidot story is senseless. “This is a strike against N1 just as the Telekom deal was not about business but was intended to destroy N1. This is about primary political influence with the aim of destroying N1 or at least chasing away (its news director) Jugoslav Cosic,” Georgiev said.
KRIK investigative journalism portal editor Stevan Dojcinovic recalled that Antidot is already being sued “for its lies” and added that the Antidot portal was set up to look like an investigative journalism team but was actually just there to attack the political opposition and independent journalists.