„Utrinski Vesnik“, a print media company existing for 18 years, on Saturday, April 29, will stop working. This newspaper managed to resist the political pressures and the government’s control and adhered to, as much as it could, objectively informing the public throughout the years.
Despite the numerous notices of dismissal, changes of ownerships and editorial arrangements in the past several years, the newspaper managed to survive. However, the public has witnessed that lately the situation has deteriorated dramatically, mainly due to the way it was managed and instrumentalized by a structure close to the ruling VMRO-DPMNE, which became the owner of this and other newspapers, part of the company Media Print Macedonia.
With the last transformation “Utrinski Vesnik” went through, a new company was formed, Media print Ltd, registered at the home address of Aleksandar Dinev, one of the owners, but in the public it is known that the control and the ownership are actually in the hands of the business – political clique close to VMRO-DPMNE.
In the public, Srgjan Kerim is pointed out to for the closing of Utrinski Vesnik, who for a longer time has been linked with powerful people and is at the top of the company, and with whom the scandal of several years ago is linked to, when his vehicle and driver where prevented in an attempt to illegally transfer 750,000 euros in a plastic bottle across the border in Austria.
Despite the closure of this newspaper, the old-new company has announced hiring of more than 50 journalists, which excludes the economic-financial reason for such a move.
Macedonia, according to this year’s index of “Reporters without borders” on media freedom, is at the 111th place in the world. From the European countries, this year only Russia, Belarus and Turkey lag behind Macedonia.
Previously, in February 2017, journalists from “Utrinski Vesnik”, “Vest” and “Dnevnik” were on a strike for payment of several overdue salaries. The strike ended after Media Print Macedonia paid their January salary. There was support for the 120 journalists also from the international community and international journalists and media organizations.
CIVIL – Center for Freedom, then came out with an announcement concerning the strike of the journalists, demanding an immediate solution to this ordeal of the journalists.
Closing of another print media is something the public least expected.
