Blitzkrieg

The managing director of the Blic-pres enterprise and the editor-in-chief of the Belgrade daily Blic, Manojlo Vukotic, took only three days to resign and start a new daily called Novi Blic. Vukotic was allegedly dissatisfied with "a number of conflicts" with his publishers and "violations" of his editorial policy, but his new daily differs from the one he left only by its cyrillic script.

Vukotic managed to register his new daily, arrange the distribution network and sale, get the equipment and find a priest to bless the premises in only three days. He told his readers that he owned 50 percent of the daily's shares but declined to name his partners. Rumours have it that one of them is the ABC Grafika publishing house, perhaps because that's where the new daily is located and printed.

Almost the entire Blic crew moved to the new daily along with their editor-in-chief. "There have been more conflicts prior to all this, but the incident which occurred two weeks ago was too much. The editorial staff asked the Board of Directors to raise the employees' wages proportinally to the recent devaluation of the dinar, but the daily's Austrian co-owner replied with an order that all wages should be cut by 50 percent. He also demanded a new editorial team to be appointed and wanted me to sack half the employees. I couldn't accept that and even the Board of Directors gave up its demands. However, I could no longer work under so much pressure and all kinds of ultimatums, so I resigned. I was joined by the entire team who laughed off a promise by one of the founders that wages will be raised", Vukotic told the Vreme weekly.

Nevertheless, the daily Blic was issued the next day and its new editor-in-chief, Veselin Simonovic, wished his former colleagues the best of luck. The Blic-pres enterprise is looking for a new managing director. The acting managing director is Snezana Vitas, Manojlo Vukotic's former deputy.

The Blic editor-in-chief, however, told the Vreme weekly a different story. "There was a misunderstanding between the managing director and the employer, while the crew were persuaded to join Vukotic. A few days after the demand for a proportinal rise in wages, the Board of Directors decided to sack no one and raise the wages gradually. The crew, however, haven't been told this and it was easy to take advantage of them", Simonovic told Vreme.

Vukotic, on the other hand, says the wages were not the primary issue. "The point is that the founder decided to split Blic-pres into three: the Blic-pres publishing enterprise, the Blic distribution network and the Eastborkers Serbia marketing company, meaning that the newspaper with a daily circulation of 200,000 copies and me as the editor-in-chief were no longer in control of our own assets. We had to beg the sister-companies for money and that was something I couldn't accept", he said.

Two dailies with the same appearance were out on Monday, creating confusion among readers. Novi Blic could be found everywhere but not the old daily.

"We ordered 201,000 copies on Monday from ABC Grafika. The owner and the managing director said that was all right, but they printed only 74,000 copies. Blic could not be found on many kiosks and demand by far exceeded suppy even though a new daily had appeared. ABC Grafika offered many explanations but I don't think any of them were genuine. We ordered 151,000 copies on Tuesday, but ABC Grafika printed only 87,029 copies and we had no choice but to terminate our contract with them. Our daily now has 28 pages instead of 24 and we are printed by Borba. We will demand compensation from ABC Grafika for the huge financial losses we suffered", Veselin Simonovic said.
The ABC Grafika managing director Slavoljub Kacarevic said the publishing house could not meet Blic's demand because there wasn't enough  printing paper. "We have no intention of pulling Blic's weight and taking credits so that they are satisfied", he told reporters. Only a few days earlier, he played dumb when they asked him if it was true that a new daily was being founded in his firm's building.

An even bigger problem was the new daily's name and appearance. The Novi Blic enterprise could not register with the authorities because there were several other companies with a similar name in the same business.

"The daily Blic and its head were founded by Blic press. Expropriation of private property is a fallony. We have no choice but to start a legal proceding and demand compensation. The situation is perfectly clear from a legal point of view, and I believe the court's decisions will be in accord with the law", Simonovic said.

The court came forward with its verdict on April 22. "We have been banned temporarily because of the daily's head. Blic's head was my idea. I will not give up on my rights as the author", said Manojlo Vukotic.

It is uncertain how the dispute between the two dailies will end, but kiosks sellers and callporters are in big trouble at the moment. Many readers buy one daily only to find out that they actually wanted the other, and then ask for a replacement. We have the first real war among independent media in Serbia, much to the delight of the daily Politika and other pro-regime newspapers.