BIRN’S BIG SPIN: Why it concealed evidence of Danas daily and Šarić gang collaboration

The article by Birn titled "Kako je Šarić uređivao medije iz pritvorske ćelije: Kola na poklon za zaslužne novinare" (“How Šarić edited media outlets from his detention cell: Cars gifted to deserving reporters”) is a textbook example of an unprofessional treatment of facts, the topic, and the truth. In it, BIRN aimed at tackling media corruption and the ties between the mafia and media workers, but it went about it entirely wrong and in a biased and dilettante fashion, even unwittingly hinting at itself being part of the ties to certain interest groups. What other explanation is there for the fact that BIRN acted deliberately and in an obviously calculated manner when it left out some crucial information which, had due journalistic diligence been implemented, would have provided the whole truth regarding the topic in the title – which media editorial teams really had corrupt reporters in their own ranks, who were ready to act in Darko Šarić’s interest, and which reporters and editorial teams did not follow the dictates of a criminal gang.

Why did the BIRN investigators fail to include this slam dunk in their story? There is no answer. The BIRN editorial staff has not provided answers to Kurir’s questions this time either, including among others the question regarding leaving the Danas daily out, seeing as this daily came up as a topic in the intercepted communication between Šarić and his associates.

Moreover, it was a decision made by BIRN to conceal from the general public the photograph – part of the material that BIRN based its story on – showing a Blic piece in pdf, i.e. a newspaper page that was being prepared to go to press. This photograph was sent to Šarić’s gang by someone from the editorial team, and the article on the page in question was indeed published the following day in the Blic print edition. What is interesting is that BIRN wanted to suppress the entire information regarding the sending of the pdf page to criminals, and, as a result, it was not even mentioned in the first published version.

It was only after Kurir had asked questions about this omission by the BIRN investigators that a new version was posted on the web portal, which now mentioned this detail as well, which happens to be the most explicit prof that, owing to the corrupt reporters, Šarić had always been one step ahead of those who had been after him. The photograph has as yet not been published, although BIRN has it since the start of its work on this topic.

More media outlets are specified in the indictment, but BIRN passes over them in silence. For example, the indictment shows that the communication includes TV Prva, but the BIRN editorial staff did not publish that. Referring to a female reporter by the nickname “sister” is yet another detail from the communication between Šarić and his associates by which BIRN put up a smokescreen. Although everyone in the journalism industry, including BIRN itself, knows that “sister” is not someone from Kurir or Blic, BIRN published this part of the story without a further explanation, thus misleading the general public.

The conspicuous silence on the part of BIRN with regard to all these questions by Kurir makes one suspect with good reason that someone had in fact wanted to do just that: pass over the media editorial teams for which there were clear indications that they had content commissioned directly from Šarić’s detention cell, or lump them together with all the other media outlets, thus creating an atmosphere in which most crime reporters were criminalized and suspected of collaborating with the mafia.

Adding fuel to the fire

How did BIRN manage to pull all this off? The main point of the article is a new indictment against Šarić and, according to BIRN, the evidence that reveals how certain information sent by the defendant in custody using the Sky app had reached certain media outlets, how the titles and articles had been changed and edited, and what sorts of gifts some reporters had received as an award for their participation in discrediting the accused accomplices. All this would not have been a problem if BIRN had not gone too far in doctoring the material, creating a blurred image and misleading the readers into believing that all the media outlets mentioned in the article had worked in the interests of a criminal gang. Kurir did not accept being designated as a criminals’ associate, a media outlet that tolerates corrupt reporters, and as an editorial team whose editorial policy is dictated by a mafia gang.

The consequence of such a firm stance taken up by Kurir is a paradox of sorts. It has turned out that BIRN actually added fuel to the fire. Not of its own accord, but as a result of Kurir’s determination to shed light on the matter. Rather than detecting and going after the corrupt journalists in its articles, BIRN acted in a calculated way in choosing who to go after, thus revealing its true intentions and, to use the fire and fuel analogy, added fuel to the fire that it had started itself. Had Kurir not insisted on a fair approach and undoctored truth, the cunning BIRN would have actually outwitted the general public. The belief would have persisted that there are reasons to suspect each journalist and each editorial team, as per BIRN’s editorial staff’s decisions – some would have been suspected more, some less – which was evidently BIRN’s goal, despite the facts that it was in possession of. And what it had was the information that not only clears Kurir and some other media outlets of all suspicion, but it also had solid evidence that some media outlets had published articles commissioned by the Šarić clan, except that the BIRN article simply fails to mention them.

Ties to interest groups

The Serbian Journalists' Code of Ethics lists the following as one of the first principles:

“The possible effect of published information on a media outlet or a media owner must not affect the decision regarding its publication. The political or ideological background to the information must not affect the decision regarding its publication, even if said political or ideological background runs contrary to the political position of journalists, editors, or media owners.”

Should these coordinates be used to look for the reasons for the strange journalistic methodology using which such an article by BIRN was authored? If the facts are stacked up the right way, certain interest groups can be detected. In effect, BIRN published an article crudely libelling Kurir and using groundless insinuations to implicate it in the story of dirty journalists who work for Darko Šarić’s criminal gang. Although we had been pointing out the facts, BIRN simply ignored them, sending in this way a clear signal that the person who had commissioned such a planned attack against certain media outlets does in fact exist, and that the selection of the information in question was no accident. What followed the publication of the article was no accident either. Once they put in an effort to make the Danas daily – one of the media outlets owned by Dragan Šolak’s United Group – invisible in the story of the corrupt media, the editors at BIRN green-lighted the article and so lit the match. Fanning the flames started in line with the tried and tested model, seen so many times before: The BIRN article was immediately picked up by Šolak’s media outlets – first the N1 and Nova.rs web portals, followed by the N1 TV channel, which subsequently ran a story on this topic. Šolak’s mechanism for destroying his competitors sprang into action, so, quite expectedly, the article was also picked up by the Danas daily, the Direktno web portal, the Vreme weekly, and Crta – which are also parts of the same mechanism.

As it keeps refusing to answer Kurir’s questions, we take this opportunity to ask BIRN the main one: If it was not at the service of this mechanism, why is BIRN disregarding Kurir’s questions, not rectifying its errors, and apologizing to Kurir?

The Kurir Editorial Team