Belgrade daily Danas marks 24th Birthday

Belgrade daily Danas marked its 24th birthday on Wednesday, a press release said, recalling that the first issue was publisheed on June 9, 1997.

This year’s anniversary brought readers a special birthday issue and a new design of its web portal.

The editorial in the first issue of Danas said: “They tell us that it’s not a good time to start a new newspaper. People have no money, summer is coming and the newsstands are crowded. They are right. They tell us that it’s hard, almost impossible to survive if the daily does not have the backing of the authorities or opposition, Brussels, Washington, the police, traffickers in people and wheat or businessmen with political ambitions. They are right again”.

“Danas is still being published in 2021 with the same mission, trying to abide by all professional standards and with serious and critical journalism as set by the first issue. In the past year, the daily has continued to come under fire from top state officials and one of the forms of pressure are the law suits over its content. Despite that, Danas continues to increase its circulation and number of visits to its site,” the press release said.

The Daily also presented its two journalism awards - the Stasa Marinkovic award to Newsmax Adria anchor Jelena Obucina and the Dan Graf Nikola Burzan award for best Danas daily journalist to its political correspondent Marija Stojanovic.

It added that the Danas portal has become one of the 15 most popular in Serbia according to the Gemius agency.

Danas has also won the Dusan Bogavac award from the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS) and the Dusan Bogavac Foundation. It also won an award from PC Press magazine as one of the five best news portals and ranked 7^th in a regional poll organized by Media Daily.

The daily recalled that two of its founders – CEO Dusan Mitrovic and its first editor in chief Grujica Spasovic - died in the past year.

“Danas is on the newsstands with a new appearance and we have improved our danas.rs portal,” the press release said. The celebration included a presentation of a new video advertisement.

The birthday issue includes a free code to download four e-books provided by Laguna and Novinarnica. Danas also plans to hand out more than 3,000 copies of books published by Dan Graf.

Danas daily became part of United Media in March 2021. The daily’s publisher Dan Graf also publishes the free City Magazine.