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Blic

January 26, 2023

Blic (Cyrillic: Блиц, [ˈbliːt͡s]) is a daily middle-market tabloid newspaper in Serbia. Founded in 1996, Blic is owned by Ringier Axel Springer Media AG, a joint venture between Ringier media corporation from Switzerland and Axel Springer AG from Germany.

Blic
TypeDaily newspaper
FormatTabloid
Owner(s)Ringier
PublisherRingier Serbia doo.
EditorMarko Stjepanović
Founded16 September 1996; 26 years ago (1996-09-16)
Political alignmentSerbian Progressive Party
Liberalism
Populism
Sensationalism
Pro-Europeanism
Anti-Russian sentiment[1]
HeadquartersŽorža Klemansoa 19, Belgrade, Serbia
Circulation~58,000 copies sold (2016)
Websitewww.blic.rs

Ownership

The initial owners of Blic, Austria-based businessmen Aleksandar Lupšić and Peter Kelbel, sold the paper along with its parent company Blic Press d.o.o. in November 2000 to Gruner + Jahr, a German publishing firm majority-owned by the Bertelsmann conglomerate, right after the October 5th overthrow in Serbia.[2] Initially, G+J bought 49% stake in Blic Press d.o.o.,[3] but eventually bought the remaining stake as well.

In March 2003, Gruner + Jahr sold its 25.1% stake in Blic Press d.o.o. to Vienna Capital Partners (VCP)[4] while retaining the remaining 74.9%.[5]

After buying 74.9% stake in Blic Press d.o.o. from Gruner+Jahr in January 2004,[6] Ringier AG assigned Attila Mihók to be the CEO of its new Serbian subsidiary that got renamed Ringier d.o.o. He performed the job until November 2007 and was in July 2008 succeeded by Jelena Drakulić.

In 2010, when Ringier AG and Axel Springer AG launched a new joint venture Ringier Axel Springer Media AG, Blic got incorporated among the assets of the newly created joint venture entity while Ringier d.o.o. in Serbia changed its name to Ringier Axel Springer d.o.o.

The joint Swiss-German entity owns and operates Blic through its local subsidiary Ringier Axel Springer d.o.o. (formerly Blic Press d.o.o. and Ringier d.o.o.), a limited liability company.[7]

Blic online platforms such as blic.rs, 24sata.rs, and alo.rs are controlled by Ringier Digital AG, which has in July 2014 had its 49% stake bought by KKR, an American private equity firm specializing in leveraged buyouts.[8] KKR thus increased its presence on the Serbian digital media and telecommunications market,[9] having previously in October 2013 bought the majority stake in Serbia Broadband, leading Serbian cable and Internet provider.[10]

Assets

Print

Since its founding, Blic has become a centerpiece of several other publications. They include:

  • Alo! (Blic's sister daily tabloid started in October 2007)
  • Euro Blic (Blic issue for Republika Srpska)
  • Blic Žena (started in November 2004)
  • Blic Puls (celebrity gossip weekly magazine started in March 2006)
  • 24 sata (free weekly newspaper that previously run as free daily in period from October 2006 )
  • Auto Bild (Serbian version of the German magazine, launched in 2010 after Ringier created a joint venture with Axel Springer)

Digital

Blic.rs online portal incorporates news content from the Blic daily as well as from other publications under the Ringer Axel Springer umbrella in Serbia. Since the late 2000s, Blic.rs is among the most visited websites in Serbia, according to Gemius Audience research.

Other online offerings include Alo.rs, 24sata.rs, PulsOnline.rs, SuperOdmor.rs, NonStopShop.rs, MojAuto.rs, and Nekretnine.rs.

History

The newspaper was founded in September 1996[11] by a group of Austria-based businessmen that included Peter Kelbel and Aleksandar Lupšić, who simultaneously bought Bratislava's Nový čas though the original newspaper had been started a year before (in 1995, as weekly) and had drawn some journalists who had previously been working for Borba and Nasa Borba. At the time of his investment in Blic, Lupšić had strong ties to Milošević's wife Mira Marković and her party Yugoslav Left (JUL). The first issue of Blic appeared on September 16, 1996 thus becoming the 10th daily newspaper to be published in FR Yugoslavia at the time (the other nine being Politika, Borba, Dnevnik, Pobjeda, Narodne novine, Večernje novosti, Politika ekspres, Naša borba, and Dnevni telegraf).

Prior to that, the same group took over a Prague newspaper where they gained valuable publishing experience which encouraged them to go on further. For their Serbian operation, the owners got seasoned journalist Manojlo "Manjo" Vukotić to be the editor-in-chief.

Just like many other media operations in Serbia from the 1990s and beyond, Blic's ownership structure was murky as well. It was controlled by an entity called Blic Press d.o.o. - a limited liability company registered in Belgrade in March 1996. Blic Press' owners according to the Serbian Business Register were listed to be Milorad Perovic, a resident of Belgrade (51%) and Liechtenstein-based company named Mitsui Securities Eastern Europe Fund AG (49%) whose owners were not listed.[12]

Starting out, Blic was a typical stripped-down tabloid with short and simple stories, as well as a lot of entertainment content. Its first issues were circulated in 50,000 copies per day with the price set at 1 dinar. It also ran a heavily advertised sweepstakes with the grand prize being a Volkswagen Polo Classic car and DM30,000. As a result of the sweepstakes, the paper's circulation increased by 30% within only a couple of weeks of the first issue.[12]

1996–1997 protests

In November 1996, local municipal elections were held across Serbia. The opposition, headed by the DS and SPO, parties made big gains at the expense of Milošević's Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS). Milošević refused to recognize the results, thus sparking a huge outpouring of street protests. Blic capitalized on this to further its position on the market through fair coverage of the events ignored by the government-controlled media. The decision turned out to be a business winner in the short term as circulation rapidly grew to 200,000 copies a day, but it also drew the ire of the Milošević authorities.

In the circumstances when state media made virtually no mention of the protests and the reporting of the independent media was insufficient on the subject, Blic made a gutsy decision to devote a sizable part of its paper every day to the protests. The government responded immediately by restricting Blic's access to print and distribution facilities as the state printing house refused to print any more than 80,000 copies of the paper. The problem first appeared when it came time to print the 29 November 1996 holiday 4-day issue (FR Yugoslavia at the time still celebrated the old SFR Yugoslavia's day of the republic) as the state-owned Borba printing facility informed Blic staff that it's not able to print the holiday issue in the requested 235,000 copies "due to technical reasons" and instead offered to print about a third of that. The holiday issue still appeared on newsstands in projected circulation as some of it got printed at Borba and the rest in privately owned ABC Produkt. However, the issue that appeared was a complete whitewash, abandoning the paper's new concept and going back to entertainment and frivolity. Forty three journalists employed at Blic immediately publicly distanced themselves from the issue, and editor-in-chief Manjo Vukotić and his deputy Cvijetin Milivojević resigned in protest.

The most controversial part of the issue was the pro-government op-ed piece under the headline "Nećemo da podstičemo nasilje" (We won't encourage violence) signed by Peter Kelbel who wrote it claiming to represent the paper's owners. In the piece he criticizes the protesters and indirectly supports the government, saying among other things that "Yugoslavia needs creative people and not wolves who follow the alpha wolf and hunt in packs" - a veiled reference to opposition leader Vuk Drašković whose first name Vuk translates to "wolf". Clearly, since certain influential individuals within the state apparatus were unhappy with the paper's reporting, Blic made guarantees to decrease reporting on the protests and to decrease circulation for the time being. Blic publishers caved in under state pressure and drastically reduced the number of political pages.[12]

Blic owners faced a lot of criticism over their decision to give in to the authorities. The move was criticized by many of its journalists and editors along with the Serbian opposition. As a response, in December 1996, the journalists and editors formed their own newspaper Demokratija that had the support of opposition Democratic Party (DS).[13] Still, Vukotić and many of the staffers that originally distanced themselves from the paper returned to Blic shortly and for a few months put out a stripped-down version of the paper with only 60,000 copies printed each day.

All in all, as a result of the unsavory episode, Blic quickly lost half its circulation, as well as many of its journalistic staff who resigned in protest.

Blic then contracted a new printing house, resumed a critical line and soon increased its circulation to nearly 160,000.[14]

Glas javnosti

In April 1998, Blic experienced another fragmentation of its staff when due to disagreements with owner Aca Lupšić over revenue sharing, editor-in-chief Manjo Vukotić decided to step out on his own. Majority of the staff followed him. They then hooked up with another businessman Radisav Rodić (owner of the printing company ABC Produkt that printed daily issues of Blic and its offshoots) and under his financial backing started a new paper called Glas javnosti (the first five issues were called Novi Blic). Rodić thus entered the world of newspaper publishing.

New ownership: Gruner+Jahr

In November 2000, shortly after the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević in Serbia, German publishing firm Gruner + Jahr announced its purchase of 49% stake in Blic Press d.o.o. from Aca Lupšić and his partners. At the time of the transaction, the paper's circulation was announced to be 175,000 copies daily.[15]

Ringier buyout

Blic got sold to Swiss multimedia communications group Ringier in early 2004 (takeover finalized in October 2004).

The 'Suitcase' affair

In early 2006, Blic created a storm of controversy by claiming in its 4 February 2006 issue that the 11 January arrest of Dejan Simić, National Bank of Serbia vice-governor (who was taken in red-handed at his apartment while accepting a €100,000 bribe from Vladimir Zagrađanin of SPS), actually had a completely different background from what the police and Serbian government authorities told the public. The newspaper alleged that Dušan Lalić, an NBS employee and deputy PM Miroljub Labus' son-in-law, was actually the individual behind the bribing. The story further alleged that deputy PM Labus spent an entire night convincing Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica not to prosecute his son-in-law.

And finally, the story also accused Serbian Interior Minister Dragan Jočić of stopping the police investigation from climbing up the chain of command and thus preventing the arrests of NBS governor Radovan Jelašić and the above-mentioned Dušan Lalić, as well as SPS' Ivica Dačić who was present in the mentioned apartment minutes before the police stormed in. The paper voiced its fear that the minority coalition government, which held a shaky 5-seat parliamentary support at the time, would fall as Jočić's motivation for disrupting the thorough police action.[16]

All of the parties concerned (Labus, Lalić, Jočić, Jelašić, and Dačić) vehemently rubbished the story, with Labus announcing immediate legal action against Blic for libel.

In March 2007, the parent company announced Blic's average daily circulation during the 2006 calendar year to be 180,948.[17]

Ratko Knežević interview

On July 27, 2009, Blic published an interview with Ratko Knežević, former Montenegrin trade representative in Washington, D.C. and former close friend of Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Đukanović (Knežević was the best man at Đukanović's wedding). The Blic interview came couple of days after Knežević gave a similarly explosive interview to Montenegrin daily Vijesti in which he effectively accused Đukanović and his associate Stanko Subotić of ordering the October 2008 murder of Croatian journalist Ivo Pukanić. Knežević also provided many alleged details of the decades-long cigarette smuggling operation, Đukanović had been involved in.

Conducted by journalist Nenad Jaćimović, the focus of the Blic interview was on cigarette smuggling operations through Serbia during the 1990s and its political fallout that continues to this day. In the interview, Knežević accused Đukanović, Subotić and their "cigarette smuggling cartel" of defrauding the Serbian budget of €300 million in unpaid taxes with the help of Jovica Stanišić, Serbian former state security chief and Milošević's second in command.[18] Knežević further alleged that since the regime change in Serbia, Đukanović and Subotić needed a "friendly" government in Belgrade and to that end tried their best for years to reach a deal with Serbian president Boris Tadić and his circle. After allegedly getting nowhere with Tadić, according to Knežević, they then turned their attention to other players on the Serbian political scene such as Tomislav Nikolić and Aleksandar Vučić who met with Đukanović and Subotić during October 2007 in Paris' Ritz Hotel. Furthermore, according to Knežević, for this Đukanović and Subotić had the support of former DGSE intelligence operative Arnaud Danjean. Knežević also claimed that the cigarette cartel also poses a security threat to Boris Tadić and that even Croatian president Stipe Mesić gave Tadić documents during their meeting in Sofia on April 25, 2009 warning him of possible attacks on him.[19]

Subotić announced that he would sue Blic for libel.[20] After Subotić wrote a press release that was distributed in Balkan print media outlets on August 11, 2009, in which he denies Knežević's charges and further questions Knežević's and Blic editor-in-chief Veselin Simonović's professional and moral credibility,[21] Knežević wrote a lengthy response saying that he stands by every word from his Vijesti, Blic and NIN interviews. In the same response, Knežević also provided further details of the murders of Radovan "Badža" Stojičić, Jusuf "Jusa" Bulić, Vanja Bokan, Goran Žugić, Darko "Beli" Raspopović, and Blagota "Baja" Sekulić (all of which he claimed are connected to cigarette smuggling with the murders of Stojičić, Bulić, and Bokan directly ordered and approved by Stanišić, Subotić, and Đukanović) by directly naming the individuals that carried them out as well as those that ordered them.[22]

Editorial history

  • Manjo Vukotić (1996-1998)
  • Veselin Simonović (1998 - 2014)
  • Marko Stjepanović (2014-2016)
  • Predrag Mihailović (since 2016)

See also

References

  1. ^ PUTINE, PRESTANI DA POREDIŠ KOSOVO I KRIM!;Blic, 27 December 2020
  2. ^ Gruner + Jahr wird 49% des jugoslawischen BLIC-Verlages übernehmen, G+J press release, 9 November 2000
  3. ^ Invasion of the Magazine Snatchers;BusinessWeek, 7 April 2002
  4. ^ Strasser wird VCP-Manager und hält auch 10 Prozent der VCP-Anteile 2011-07-08 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ VCP cooperates with Gruner + Jahr 2014-10-26 at the Wayback Machine;VCP AG press release, 27 March 2003
  6. ^ 'Ringier' preuzima 'Blic';Blic, 25 October 2003
  7. ^ Komora May 28, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ Ringier and KKR partner to invest in the growth of Ringier's digital businesses; 14 July 2014
  9. ^ KKR expands Serbian activities;BroadbandTVNews, 21 July 2014
  10. ^ Serbia Broadband sold to KKR;BroadbandTVNews, 16 October 2013
  11. ^ Robert Thomas (January 1999). Serbia Under Milošević: Politics in the 1990s. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-85065-367-7. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
  12. ^ a b c Sumrak "Blic" demokratije
  13. ^ Blic krig, NIN, December 6, 1996
  14. ^ Jovanka Matić: Problems facing Quality Press Development in Serbia 2009-03-06 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ GERMAN PUBLISHER BUYS 49 PER CENT SHARE IN 'BLIC';B92, 14 November 2000
  16. ^ Blic nastavlja priču
  17. ^ Blic pres planira rast prihoda;B92, 30 March 2007
  18. ^ Stanišić i Cane ojadili Srbiju za 300 miliona evra, Blic, July 27, 2009 July 29, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  19. ^ Knežević o pokušajima preuzimanja vlasti: Duvanska mafija preti Tadiću, Blic, July 28, 2009 August 21, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  20. ^ Subotić: Tužiću „Blic“ kao što sam „Nacional“, Blic, July 30, 2009 July 31, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  21. ^ pismo medijima povodom pisanja „Blica” - Subotić: Država da ispita optužbe Ratka Kneževića, Blic, August 11, 2009 August 13, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  22. ^ Odgovor Ratka Kneževića Stanku Subotiću: Cane i Milo uklonili sve protivnike, Blic, August 12, 2009 August 12, 2009, at the Wayback Machine

External links

  • Blic online portal
  • Ringier Axel Springer Srbija, the paper's publisher

January 26, 2023
blic, cyrillic, Блиц, ˈbliːt, daily, middle, market, tabloid, newspaper, serbia, founded, 1996, owned, ringier, axel, springer, media, joint, venture, between, ringier, media, corporation, from, switzerland, axel, springer, from, germany, typedaily, newspaperf. Blic Cyrillic Blic ˈbliːt s is a daily middle market tabloid newspaper in Serbia Founded in 1996 Blic is owned by Ringier Axel Springer Media AG a joint venture between Ringier media corporation from Switzerland and Axel Springer AG from Germany BlicTypeDaily newspaperFormatTabloidOwner s RingierPublisherRingier Serbia doo EditorMarko StjepanovicFounded16 September 1996 26 years ago 1996 09 16 Political alignmentSerbian Progressive PartyLiberalismPopulismSensationalismPro EuropeanismAnti Russian sentiment 1 HeadquartersZorza Klemansoa 19 Belgrade SerbiaCirculation 58 000 copies sold 2016 Websitewww blic rs Contents 1 Ownership 2 Assets 2 1 Print 2 2 Digital 3 History 3 1 1996 1997 protests 3 2 Glas javnosti 3 3 New ownership Gruner Jahr 3 4 Ringier buyout 3 5 The Suitcase affair 3 6 Ratko Knezevic interview 4 Editorial history 5 See also 6 References 7 External linksOwnership EditThe initial owners of Blic Austria based businessmen Aleksandar Lupsic and Peter Kelbel sold the paper along with its parent company Blic Press d o o in November 2000 to Gruner Jahr a German publishing firm majority owned by the Bertelsmann conglomerate right after the October 5th overthrow in Serbia 2 Initially G J bought 49 stake in Blic Press d o o 3 but eventually bought the remaining stake as well In March 2003 Gruner Jahr sold its 25 1 stake in Blic Press d o o to Vienna Capital Partners VCP 4 while retaining the remaining 74 9 5 After buying 74 9 stake in Blic Press d o o from Gruner Jahr in January 2004 6 Ringier AG assigned Attila Mihok to be the CEO of its new Serbian subsidiary that got renamed Ringier d o o He performed the job until November 2007 and was in July 2008 succeeded by Jelena Drakulic In 2010 when Ringier AG and Axel Springer AG launched a new joint venture Ringier Axel Springer Media AG Blic got incorporated among the assets of the newly created joint venture entity while Ringier d o o in Serbia changed its name to Ringier Axel Springer d o o The joint Swiss German entity owns and operates Blic through its local subsidiary Ringier Axel Springer d o o formerly Blic Press d o o and Ringier d o o a limited liability company 7 Blic online platforms such as blic rs 24sata rs and alo rs are controlled by Ringier Digital AG which has in July 2014 had its 49 stake bought by KKR an American private equity firm specializing in leveraged buyouts 8 KKR thus increased its presence on the Serbian digital media and telecommunications market 9 having previously in October 2013 bought the majority stake in Serbia Broadband leading Serbian cable and Internet provider 10 Assets EditPrint Edit Since its founding Blic has become a centerpiece of several other publications They include Alo Blic s sister daily tabloid started in October 2007 Euro Blic Blic issue for Republika Srpska Blic Zena started in November 2004 Blic Puls celebrity gossip weekly magazine started in March 2006 24 sata free weekly newspaper that previously run as free daily in period from October 2006 Auto Bild Serbian version of the German magazine launched in 2010 after Ringier created a joint venture with Axel Springer Digital Edit Blic rs online portal incorporates news content from the Blic daily as well as from other publications under the Ringer Axel Springer umbrella in Serbia Since the late 2000s Blic rs is among the most visited websites in Serbia according to Gemius Audience research Other online offerings include Alo rs 24sata rs PulsOnline rs SuperOdmor rs NonStopShop rs MojAuto rs and Nekretnine rs History EditThe newspaper was founded in September 1996 11 by a group of Austria based businessmen that included Peter Kelbel and Aleksandar Lupsic who simultaneously bought Bratislava s Novy cas though the original newspaper had been started a year before in 1995 as weekly and had drawn some journalists who had previously been working for Borba and Nasa Borba At the time of his investment in Blic Lupsic had strong ties to Milosevic s wife Mira Markovic and her party Yugoslav Left JUL The first issue of Blic appeared on September 16 1996 thus becoming the 10th daily newspaper to be published in FR Yugoslavia at the time the other nine being Politika Borba Dnevnik Pobjeda Narodne novine Vecernje novosti Politika ekspres Nasa borba and Dnevni telegraf Prior to that the same group took over a Prague newspaper where they gained valuable publishing experience which encouraged them to go on further For their Serbian operation the owners got seasoned journalist Manojlo Manjo Vukotic to be the editor in chief Just like many other media operations in Serbia from the 1990s and beyond Blic s ownership structure was murky as well It was controlled by an entity called Blic Press d o o a limited liability company registered in Belgrade in March 1996 Blic Press owners according to the Serbian Business Register were listed to be Milorad Perovic a resident of Belgrade 51 and Liechtenstein based company named Mitsui Securities Eastern Europe Fund AG 49 whose owners were not listed 12 Starting out Blic was a typical stripped down tabloid with short and simple stories as well as a lot of entertainment content Its first issues were circulated in 50 000 copies per day with the price set at 1 dinar It also ran a heavily advertised sweepstakes with the grand prize being a Volkswagen Polo Classic car and DM30 000 As a result of the sweepstakes the paper s circulation increased by 30 within only a couple of weeks of the first issue 12 1996 1997 protests Edit In November 1996 local municipal elections were held across Serbia The opposition headed by the DS and SPO parties made big gains at the expense of Milosevic s Socialist Party of Serbia SPS Milosevic refused to recognize the results thus sparking a huge outpouring of street protests Blic capitalized on this to further its position on the market through fair coverage of the events ignored by the government controlled media The decision turned out to be a business winner in the short term as circulation rapidly grew to 200 000 copies a day but it also drew the ire of the Milosevic authorities In the circumstances when state media made virtually no mention of the protests and the reporting of the independent media was insufficient on the subject Blic made a gutsy decision to devote a sizable part of its paper every day to the protests The government responded immediately by restricting Blic s access to print and distribution facilities as the state printing house refused to print any more than 80 000 copies of the paper The problem first appeared when it came time to print the 29 November 1996 holiday 4 day issue FR Yugoslavia at the time still celebrated the old SFR Yugoslavia s day of the republic as the state owned Borba printing facility informed Blic staff that it s not able to print the holiday issue in the requested 235 000 copies due to technical reasons and instead offered to print about a third of that The holiday issue still appeared on newsstands in projected circulation as some of it got printed at Borba and the rest in privately owned ABC Produkt However the issue that appeared was a complete whitewash abandoning the paper s new concept and going back to entertainment and frivolity Forty three journalists employed at Blic immediately publicly distanced themselves from the issue and editor in chief Manjo Vukotic and his deputy Cvijetin Milivojevic resigned in protest The most controversial part of the issue was the pro government op ed piece under the headline Necemo da podsticemo nasilje We won t encourage violence signed by Peter Kelbel who wrote it claiming to represent the paper s owners In the piece he criticizes the protesters and indirectly supports the government saying among other things that Yugoslavia needs creative people and not wolves who follow the alpha wolf and hunt in packs a veiled reference to opposition leader Vuk Draskovic whose first name Vuk translates to wolf Clearly since certain influential individuals within the state apparatus were unhappy with the paper s reporting Blic made guarantees to decrease reporting on the protests and to decrease circulation for the time being Blic publishers caved in under state pressure and drastically reduced the number of political pages 12 Blic owners faced a lot of criticism over their decision to give in to the authorities The move was criticized by many of its journalists and editors along with the Serbian opposition As a response in December 1996 the journalists and editors formed their own newspaper Demokratija that had the support of opposition Democratic Party DS 13 Still Vukotic and many of the staffers that originally distanced themselves from the paper returned to Blic shortly and for a few months put out a stripped down version of the paper with only 60 000 copies printed each day All in all as a result of the unsavory episode Blic quickly lost half its circulation as well as many of its journalistic staff who resigned in protest Blic then contracted a new printing house resumed a critical line and soon increased its circulation to nearly 160 000 14 Glas javnosti Edit In April 1998 Blic experienced another fragmentation of its staff when due to disagreements with owner Aca Lupsic over revenue sharing editor in chief Manjo Vukotic decided to step out on his own Majority of the staff followed him They then hooked up with another businessman Radisav Rodic owner of the printing company ABC Produkt that printed daily issues of Blic and its offshoots and under his financial backing started a new paper called Glas javnosti the first five issues were called Novi Blic Rodic thus entered the world of newspaper publishing New ownership Gruner Jahr Edit In November 2000 shortly after the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia German publishing firm Gruner Jahr announced its purchase of 49 stake in Blic Press d o o from Aca Lupsic and his partners At the time of the transaction the paper s circulation was announced to be 175 000 copies daily 15 Ringier buyout Edit Blic got sold to Swiss multimedia communications group Ringier in early 2004 takeover finalized in October 2004 The Suitcase affair Edit In early 2006 Blic created a storm of controversy by claiming in its 4 February 2006 issue that the 11 January arrest of Dejan Simic National Bank of Serbia vice governor who was taken in red handed at his apartment while accepting a 100 000 bribe from Vladimir Zagrađanin of SPS actually had a completely different background from what the police and Serbian government authorities told the public The newspaper alleged that Dusan Lalic an NBS employee and deputy PM Miroljub Labus son in law was actually the individual behind the bribing The story further alleged that deputy PM Labus spent an entire night convincing Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica not to prosecute his son in law And finally the story also accused Serbian Interior Minister Dragan Jocic of stopping the police investigation from climbing up the chain of command and thus preventing the arrests of NBS governor Radovan Jelasic and the above mentioned Dusan Lalic as well as SPS Ivica Dacic who was present in the mentioned apartment minutes before the police stormed in The paper voiced its fear that the minority coalition government which held a shaky 5 seat parliamentary support at the time would fall as Jocic s motivation for disrupting the thorough police action 16 All of the parties concerned Labus Lalic Jocic Jelasic and Dacic vehemently rubbished the story with Labus announcing immediate legal action against Blic for libel In March 2007 the parent company announced Blic s average daily circulation during the 2006 calendar year to be 180 948 17 Ratko Knezevic interview Edit On July 27 2009 Blic published an interview with Ratko Knezevic former Montenegrin trade representative in Washington D C and former close friend of Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Đukanovic Knezevic was the best man at Đukanovic s wedding The Blic interview came couple of days after Knezevic gave a similarly explosive interview to Montenegrin daily Vijesti in which he effectively accused Đukanovic and his associate Stanko Subotic of ordering the October 2008 murder of Croatian journalist Ivo Pukanic Knezevic also provided many alleged details of the decades long cigarette smuggling operation Đukanovic had been involved in Conducted by journalist Nenad Jacimovic the focus of the Blic interview was on cigarette smuggling operations through Serbia during the 1990s and its political fallout that continues to this day In the interview Knezevic accused Đukanovic Subotic and their cigarette smuggling cartel of defrauding the Serbian budget of 300 million in unpaid taxes with the help of Jovica Stanisic Serbian former state security chief and Milosevic s second in command 18 Knezevic further alleged that since the regime change in Serbia Đukanovic and Subotic needed a friendly government in Belgrade and to that end tried their best for years to reach a deal with Serbian president Boris Tadic and his circle After allegedly getting nowhere with Tadic according to Knezevic they then turned their attention to other players on the Serbian political scene such as Tomislav Nikolic and Aleksandar Vucic who met with Đukanovic and Subotic during October 2007 in Paris Ritz Hotel Furthermore according to Knezevic for this Đukanovic and Subotic had the support of former DGSE intelligence operative Arnaud Danjean Knezevic also claimed that the cigarette cartel also poses a security threat to Boris Tadic and that even Croatian president Stipe Mesic gave Tadic documents during their meeting in Sofia on April 25 2009 warning him of possible attacks on him 19 Subotic announced that he would sue Blic for libel 20 After Subotic wrote a press release that was distributed in Balkan print media outlets on August 11 2009 in which he denies Knezevic s charges and further questions Knezevic s and Blic editor in chief Veselin Simonovic s professional and moral credibility 21 Knezevic wrote a lengthy response saying that he stands by every word from his Vijesti Blic and NIN interviews In the same response Knezevic also provided further details of the murders of Radovan Badza Stojicic Jusuf Jusa Bulic Vanja Bokan Goran Zugic Darko Beli Raspopovic and Blagota Baja Sekulic all of which he claimed are connected to cigarette smuggling with the murders of Stojicic Bulic and Bokan directly ordered and approved by Stanisic Subotic and Đukanovic by directly naming the individuals that carried them out as well as those that ordered them 22 Editorial history EditManjo Vukotic 1996 1998 Veselin Simonovic 1998 2014 Marko Stjepanovic 2014 2016 Predrag Mihailovic since 2016 See also EditList of Serbian newspapers Alo Glas javnostiReferences Edit PUTINE PRESTANI DA POREDIS KOSOVO I KRIM Blic 27 December 2020 Gruner Jahr wird 49 des jugoslawischen BLIC Verlages ubernehmen G J press release 9 November 2000 Invasion of the Magazine Snatchers BusinessWeek 7 April 2002 Strasser wird VCP Manager und halt auch 10 Prozent der VCP Anteile Archived 2011 07 08 at the Wayback Machine VCP cooperates with Gruner Jahr Archived 2014 10 26 at the Wayback Machine VCP AG press release 27 March 2003 Ringier preuzima Blic Blic 25 October 2003 Komora Archived May 28 2008 at the Wayback Machine Ringier and KKR partner to invest in the growth of Ringier s digital businesses 14 July 2014 KKR expands Serbian activities BroadbandTVNews 21 July 2014 Serbia Broadband sold to KKR BroadbandTVNews 16 October 2013 Robert Thomas January 1999 Serbia Under Milosevic Politics in the 1990s C Hurst amp Co Publishers p 15 ISBN 978 1 85065 367 7 Retrieved 2 August 2015 a b c Sumrak Blic demokratije Blic krig NIN December 6 1996 Jovanka Matic Problems facing Quality Press Development in Serbia Archived 2009 03 06 at the Wayback Machine GERMAN PUBLISHER BUYS 49 PER CENT SHARE IN BLIC B92 14 November 2000 Blic nastavlja pricu Blic pres planira rast prihoda B92 30 March 2007 Stanisic i Cane ojadili Srbiju za 300 miliona evra Blic July 27 2009 Archived July 29 2009 at the Wayback Machine Knezevic o pokusajima preuzimanja vlasti Duvanska mafija preti Tadicu Blic July 28 2009 Archived August 21 2009 at the Wayback Machine Subotic Tuzicu Blic kao sto sam Nacional Blic July 30 2009 Archived July 31 2009 at the Wayback Machine pismo medijima povodom pisanja Blica Subotic Drzava da ispita optuzbe Ratka Knezevica Blic August 11 2009 Archived August 13 2009 at the Wayback Machine Odgovor Ratka Knezevica Stanku Suboticu Cane i Milo uklonili sve protivnike Blic August 12 2009 Archived August 12 2009 at the Wayback MachineExternal links EditBlic online portal Ringier Axel Springer Srbija the paper s publisher Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Blic amp oldid 1112188294, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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