Picking up where the Serbian Radical Party left off, Kurir is running a defamation campaign against deputy prime minister Ivana Dulić-Marković. On Monday it was with a story claiming that her father (Kurir says his name is or was Antun, she says they got the name wrong, I don't have any information) had hid Ustaše on his farm, and that her mother had been a founder of the (fabulously succesful!) HDZ in Vojvodina. The hiding business is supposed to have taken place between 1948 and 1951, for which the only source (and who are you, reporter R.K.?) is an individual who the article says was put to death in 1957. For the curious, Ivana Dulić-Marković was born in 1961.
Today the campaign continues with a story that Dulić-Marković has "sold Vojvodina to the Croats" (a heck of an accomplishment if she could do it). The story relies on the claims by -- of all people -- Milan Paroški, the marginal paramilitarist from the Sloba era who survived and is only noticed as a marginal politician by the folks who write for Kurir. Actually he claims that the sale in question is of "nearly 30" businesses. Trouble is, he made the same claim to the same paper, clearly the only one that talks to him, in October of last year, at which time it was "28 businesses." She was not deputy PM at the time.
This is, of course, not the first time that people have attacked Ivana Dulić-Marković by trying to draw associations between her family and freaky movements from a long time ago. The last two times it was done by SRS. Which must have something in common with Kurir, no?
5 comments:
Does anyone take Kurir seriously?
How much influence (if any) does it have?
My understanding is that it is a pretty good example of yellow journalism. Of course, that doesn't mean that it doesn't have any influence.
It's a tough question. On the one hand, it does have a reputation as all of the things you can guess. On the other hand, it is hugely popular and very widely read. For a subject like this one, it is possible that the claims in the stories are believed by nobody, but that they still resonate with stereotypes that a lot of people share. So what it does is keep the suspicion alive. Then there is the added dimension: if it is the paper of DB where the loyalists of the old regime plants their stories, it might be read as instructions on what to believe in the event of ne daj boze.
Kurir is taken less seriously now than it was even six months ago - if thats possible.
I make a distinction between tabloid journalism and gutter press. Kurir and Nacional are examples of the gutter press.
Its close relative 'Press' I'd argue is closer to a real tabloid than the gutter press but its not far off.
Then again I've never been a fully paid member of the 'ban it' club.
By the way one of the reasons why Kurir is going so downmarket is because it are losing the circulation war with Press.
That forces them to do 2 things. First take money from criminal types, second write more sensationslist, populist stories.
I wont be at all surprised if they start to increasingly rely on porn as Nacional did when their circulation dropped.
A new article from B92 about possible charges against Kurir:
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/society-article.php?yyyy=2006&mm=09&dd=14&nav_id=36754
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