Type Daily newspaper Founder(s) Vladislav F. Ribnikar | Format Berliner Editor Ljiljana Smajlović | |
 | ||
Owner(s) Politika AD (50%)
East Media Group (50%) Publisher Politika novine i magazini d.o.o. | ||
Politika (Serbian Cyrillic: Политика; English: Politics) is a Serbian daily newspaper, published in Belgrade. Founded in 1904 by Vladislav F. Ribnikar, it is the oldest daily newspaper still in circulation in the Balkans and is considered to be Serbia's newspaper of record.
Contents
Ever since its launch in January 1904, Politika was published daily, except for several periods:
The launch issue had only four pages and a circulation of 2,450 copies, and its record high circulation was the 25 December 1973 issue (634,000 copies).
Publishing and ownership
Politika is published by Politika novine i magazini (PNM), a joint venture between Politika AD and WAZ-Mediengruppe.
WAZ caused controversy when it sold its 50% stake in Politika to East Media Group, a previously unheard of company based in Moscow.
PNM also publishes:
Editorial history
Controversies
In the run-up to and during the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav wars, Politika was under the control of Slobodan Milošević and the League of Communists of Serbia and was used as an information guide to show the truth of what was happening to the Serbs in other republics, together with the Radio Television of Serbia. It blamed the local Kosovo Albanians for sodomizing Đorđe Martinović, and published fabricated reader letters claiming that the Albanians were "raping hundreds of Serbian women". Before and during the Croatian War of Independence, it published opinions on how "blood may shed again" in Croatia because of World War II, published claims on how the Vatican funded Croatia to break up Yugoslavia, etc. At the end of the Battle of Vukovar, it ran the fabricated story of the Vukovar children massacre. The article was however retracted with a statement published the following day.
In 1987, Politika published a controversial text known as Vojko i Savle.