The business and political lobby of United Group chairman Dragan Šolak and the Party of Freedom and Justice leader Dragan Đilas has launched a new and unparalleled campaign against Kurir, recruiting its entire media and political artillery to this end. Đilas and Šolak mounted a virtually simultaneous attack against our newspaper yesterday, using well-known players and stratagems, such as open-air media conferences of Đilas's Party vice-president Marinika Tepić. However, for the new assault they have also recruited the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), whose text makes a series of accusations against our company and its operations – mostly things said before and endlessly repeated by United Group's media outlets.
A tight link
With this move, the BIRN has made its connections with Šolak and Đilas's business and political lobby official, and proved that it too is part of the media machinery operated by this duo from the same centre. It is therefore not surprising that yesterday a BIRN story, told umpteen times before, spread swiftly through the N1 and Nova S television channels and portals, as well as all the other media outlets owned by United Group.
Đilas and Šolak's media outlets turn into a battering ram following the same pattern. It is enough for a single cog from the media machinery to attack the target, and the entire mechanism immediately springs into action, takes hold of the same arsenal, and lets loose from their own weapons. The Danas daily used to do just that even before Šolak announced he was going to buy it, and the BIRN is doing it now. Ergo, all the media controlled by United Group have so far acted like a system of communicating vessels – advertising and helping each other out while adhering closely to the common editorial policy.
It is also revealing that the BIRN's principal 'investigators' - Slobodan Georgiev and Ana Novaković - have in the meantime transferred to United Group's media. Georgiev now heads Newsmax Adria, and Novaković is a reporter at N1.
From one and the same place
It is also no accident that the BIRN piece was published even as Marinika Tepić held a media conference, this time in front of the Serbian Government building. At the conference, Tepić reiterated the same baseless and unsubstantiated accusations regarding the collaboration between Kurir and Telekom. Tepić acted yesterday as a representative of the political wing of the business and political lobby, while the BIRN acted in the interests of the business wing of the self-same lobby.
It is therefore evident that the attack against Kurir is orchestrated and carried out from a single centre – the one where Đilas and Šolak rule the roost, governed as they are by their joint business and political interests. Despite all these attacks, Kurir will not stop. It will continue publishing the truth about the secret alliance of Šolak and Đilas and the true motives for all their actions.
Kurir.rs/ Redakcija Kurira
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