New Paper Vows to Focus on Macedonia's Rulers

Macedonian newspapers | Photo by: Balkan Insight

The new daily “Fokus” will take a critical line on the centre-right Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski, something that the newspaper’s founder, Nikola Mladenov, says is needed in Macedonia today.

“When 99 per cent of the Macedonian media are either close to the government or are clearly pro-government outlets, we felt there was a vacuum to fill,” says Mladenov who is a veteran journalist and editor and founder of Fokus weekly, the oldest magazine in the country since its independence in 1991.
 
He told Balkan Insight that the newspaper’s aim will be “to serve as a tool for the people to control the government and not the other way around”.

The team on “Fokus” consists of well-established Macedonian journalists and columnists. Jadranka Kostova has been appointed as editor.
 
Branko Geroski, founder of the daily “Dnevnik”, the first private newspaper in Macedonia in the 1990s, is on the board. So is a former foreign minister, Aleksandar Dimitrov.

The former editors of the now defunct A1 TV, Borjan Jovanovski and Mladen Cadikovski, are also part of the team.

Columnists will include former Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, university professor and former presidential candidate Ljubomir Frckoski and the ethnic Albanian opposition leader Menduh Thaci. Opposition politicians Andrej Zernovski and Stevce Jakimovski will also make regular contributions.

The launch of the new outlet comes after several media that were critical of the government were forced to close.
 
The shutting in summer of A1 TV was widely blamed on government pressure, which Gruevski denies. The TV had to close after inspectors said it had failed to pay large sums in back tax.

Three daily newspapers also owned Velja Ramkovski, Vreme, Spic and Koha e Re, followed suit. Ramkovski is now on trial on for tax avoidance.

The spate of closures concerned international media watchdogs who expressed worries about the state of press freedom in Macedonia.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, in October sent its representative for freedom of the media, Dunja Mijatovic, to inspect the situation on the ground, which she described as “worrying”.