Vijesti Newspaper Montenegro, The paper is published and managed by an entity called Daily Press d.o.o. – a limited liability company based in Podgorica. The company’s ownership is currently split between Montenegrin partners (59%), Austrian Styria Medien AG (25%), and American fund MDLF started by George Soros (16%).
Published under the “nezavisni dnevnik” (independent daily) mantra, the paper’s editorial policy was initially very much in favour of Milo Đukanović and his government’s policies and of his relations with Serbia. However, this editorial policy changed sometime after the 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum when Vijesti turned into Đukanović’s critics.
The legal and financial entity behind the paper, Daily Press d.o.o. company, was founded on November 25, 1996 and registered on December 16, 1996. The company’s founding capital of $5,000 was provided by three entities: Miodrag Perović’s company Montenegropublic, journalist Milka Tadić, and Slavica Popović acting on the behalf of Podgorica Tobacco Factory director Dragoljub “Mićo” Dautović.
The paper was started on September 1, 1997 as only the second daily newspaper in Montenegro at that point with the long running state-owned Pobjeda being their only competition. Listed as the paper’s owners were four individuals: Miodrag Perović, Ljubiša Mitrović, Slavoljub Šćekić, and Željko Ivanović.
At the precise time of the paper’s launch, the political situation in Montenegro was fairly tense as former longtime DPS (ruling political party) allies Milo Đukanović and Momir Bulatović were in the middle of a campaign for the 1997 presidential elections. Montenegro, at the time a part of FR Yugoslavia (federal country that also consisted of Serbia) was choosing between a pro-Milošević leader in Bulatović, and Đukanović who at that time started to cautiously distance himself from his former mentor Milošević although he still favoured the idea of a unified country with Serbia. Vijesti openly supported Đukanović who eventually won the highly controversial elections and thus became the president of Montenegro.
Vijesti generated plenty of criticism during the initial period from all sides of the political spectrum in Montenegro. Pro-Serbian camp saw it as an aggressive proponent of Montenegro’s separation from Serbia. On the other end, the pro-independence camp (especially members and sympathizers of LSCG party) wasn’t entirely happy with it either, criticizing the paper’s pro-independence stance as being tailored for and by Đukanović’s day to day political needs. Some have even claimed (most notably LSCG leader Slavko Perović) that the initial funds for paper’s launch were in fact provided by Đukanović who needed a seemingly independent media support at a time when he was distancing himself from Milošević.[3] Similar criticism came from journalist Nebojša Redžić who worked at Vijesti for six months – in 1999 he accused the individuals behind the newspaper of creating it “solely for the purposes of manipulating the electorate in Montenegro and steering the pro-independence voters towards Đukanović and DPS”, referring to his own involvement in the paper’s formation as the “biggest mistake in my career”.
Although occasionally critical of Đukanović and DPS on minor municipal issues in the years to come, Vijesti firmly supported his government’s policies on all the major issues such as the relations with Serbia. Furthermore, the paper ignored all the evidence and foreign reports of widespread tobacco and oil state-sponsored smuggling that took place in Montenegro under Đukanović as well as his involvement in Milošević’s war efforts during the early 1990s.
