Yet another unsuccessful media privatization in Serbia

Termination of the contract on privatization of the weekly magazine Svetlost from Kragujevac has ended the years-long agony of the oldest media outlet in Kragujevac, which has been in print for 76 years (since 1935). The closure of Svetlost began in May 2007, when it was sold for the sum of 21 million dinars – which was then worth around 260,000 euros – to a former official from the Democratic-Christian Party of Serbia (DHSS), Gvozden Jovanovic, a former mayor of the city of Kragujevac, Vlatko Rajkovic, and a local businessman, Dragoljub Milovanovic. They bought the media brand from Kragujevac with a payment schedule of six years and a monthly installment in the amount of 43,550 euros.

Two years after the privatization, the complete staff of the magazine and its editorial team – lead by the renowned Kragujevac journalists Miroslav Jovanovic, Ankica Vesic and Slobodan Cuparic – left the company due to unpaid salaries.

The owners then hired inexperienced journalists and formed a new editorial office. They appointed a former journalist from Vecernje Novosti daily newspaper, Ranko Milosavljevic, as a new editor. The new editorial team continued publishing the weekly magazine, but in February of this year they went on strike because of unpaid salaries and other contributions. The director and editor-in-chief, Ranko Milosavljevic, resigned from his position.

After losing their journalists and editors, who staged street protests demanding their salaries, the owners continued to publish the weekly with assistance from "friends of the magazine" who had never had any experience in journalism – or who had hardly ever read a newspaper issue. The magazine began publishing articles, reports and columns unworthy of being published by any serious publication and signed by anonymous "journalists" under the pseudonyms of Prepodobni Leontije, Sofronije, Nikoletina Bursac... At the same time, the names of the striking journalists and editors were being printed in the magazine's list of staff. The magazine continued to be published until the Privatization Agency decided to terminate the contract on sale.

The Agency will soon appoint a temporary director of the state capital who will immediately be faced with the fact that the bank account of the company has been blocked because of unpaid debt in the amount of 3.7 million dinars. At the same time, he will have to establish the true amount of losses and debt owed to the state, creditors and employees, and to propose measures for a possible new privatization procedure or initiation of a bankruptcy procedure.

The employees are still on strike. They demand to be returned to work and to receive their salaries, fees and contributions for the last year.

The president of the trade union of the magazine Svetlost, Srdja Rihterovic, is of the opinion that the state is obliged to fulfill this obligation after the contract on sale has been terminated.

Ankica Vesic, who was the editor of Svetlost for many years and who left the company and its new owners together with the rest of the journalistic staff two years after the privatization, says that this development was to be expected.

"As soon as we learned that Gvozden Jovanovic and his associates bought Svetlost, we knew that the deal would be unsuccessful. The owners have completely ruined the company's financial position, and at the same time they have managed to turn the magazine – whose reputation we had been building patiently and professionally for several decades – into a disgrace for journalism in Kragujevac and the rest of Serbia", she said.

The case of the weekly magazine Svetlost from Kragujevac is only the latest example of unsuccessful media privatizations in Serbia that ended in a disaster.

The irresponsible privatization policy did not have any chance of success, since it was based on unconditional sale of media outlets in a weak financial position to buyers interested only in their real estate property or in using them as a media tool to achieve political influence. The victims of such a destructive privatization are the media which have been closed down, the journalists who have left their jobs, and citizens who have been deprived of information.

Branko Vuckovic

About the authors

MC Newsletter,
November 18, 2011