Stevan Dojčinović, chief editor of KRIK (Crime and Corruption Reporting Network), has initiated legal proceedings against Dragan Vučićević, chief editor and owner of Informer, in response to false allegations published by this pro-government tabloid.
Virtually ever since it was founded in 2015, KRIK has been the target of continual attacks by Informer. In less than a year, Dojčinović and KRIK were placed ten times on Informer’s front page. Dojčinović has been accused of being ‘a fake journalist’, ‘a western spy’, ‘a mafia associate’, ‘a sado-masochist’ and ‘terrorist’ who ‘packed affairs’.
Stevan Dojčinović
Informer also wrote about internal details of a KRIK investigation, describing its progress, and revealed the working title of an unpublished article.
The tabloid also published details of private correspondence and conversations between Dojčinović and another journalist.
Dojčinović believes that this information was gathered by intelligence agencies monitoring KRIK’s work, and was then forwarded to Informer.
Despite this negative campaign, KRIK has received warm support from many colleagues in Serbia and abroad, from opposition parties as well as readers.
The Prime Minister’s Comment
Informer has claimed that Dojčinović and the whole of KRIK are involved in an international conspiracy, with the aim of overthrowing Serbia’s Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić.
In an interview for KRIK, the Prime Minister rejected Informer’s claims and pointed out that Dojčinović ‘is not seen as an enemy of the state’.
‘Informer is not my newspaper. It is a private newspaper, and you should not consider it mine just because you don’t like what it writes”, said Vučić. ‘I am convinced that no one is monitoring you as a journalist. That would be very bad for our country.’
