On this day in 1997, the first issue of the newspaper Danas was published. To date, we have published more than 9,000 issues, and this year the Danas.rs portal ranked among the ten most read websites in Serbia.

On the occasion of this great jubilee, the publisher of the daily newspaper Danas published a book in the form of a collection of caricatures by Predrag Koraksic Koraks entitled “Without Words”,

In the first issue back in 1997, the editorial board wrote the following in the editorial: “They tell us that it is not a good time to start a new newspaper. The people have no money, summer is about to come, and the press kiosks have been overbooked for a long time. They are right. We are told that it is difficult, almost impossible, to survive if the newspaper is not supported by the government, the opposition, Brussels, Washington, the police, white slave and grain traders, or businessmen with political ambitions. They are right again.

In 2022, Danas continues to be published, with the same mission, striving to respect all professional standards and to engage in serious and critical journalism as planned from the first issue.

The trend according to which the work of the editorial board is still the target of criticism from the highest state officials continued in the previous year.

Dragoljub Petrovic: Congratulations to all the readers who are celebrating

Just as there is nothing better in life than knowing all your friends, so there is nothing better in journalism than knowing all your readers.

The readers are your friends if you are a journalist, journalists are your friends if you are a reader, not every man-jack who has told Danas in the last 25 years with ridicule “Do you personally know all your readers?” knows that.

– It is best to have a few friends, but real ones, it is best to have just enough readers, but real ones – I used to say when I would hear such a remark during my 13 years in Danas, six of which as editor-in-chief.

Holding the newspaper Danas in hands has always been a sign of recognition, an ID card for normal people. Just like when you arrange a meeting through Fortuna, the lonely-hearts club, where the sign of recognition is a red carnation, the readers of our newspaper recognize themselves on the street by carrying Danas in their hands. I know those who would take Danas out of their briefcases or bags. And wink.

Those who theatrically read Danas in the tram to irritate those around them. Those who bought 10 copies of Danas when it was difficult for us and put them in the neighbours’ mailboxes. Those who, like Mrs. Katarina from Hilandarska Street, hung Koraks’ calendars at the entrance to the building every New Year’s Eve, which would remain there until the release of a new calendar.

Zoran Tomic, a professor at the Faculty of Law, took us to the restaurant Lovac for breakfast and has been promising for a long time that we will go to try sweatbread at the Mala Slavija restaurant, but we can’t agree on a date. On one occasion, Budjevac, a farmer from Sumadija, sent us a whole box of ingredients for a good breakfast typical of Sumadija: two 1,5-litre bottles of brandy, homegrown tomato, cucumber, paprika and onion. And eggs, homegrown. Our Ceca made Bachelor’s Stew for everyone on the office stove from these ingredients.

Our Ms. Goca from Kragujevac took pictures with hundreds of Danas issues, which she arranged around her room in a circle. She once came to the editorial office with croissants and a Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt as a gift for the editor-in-chief.

Every spring and summer, Bane from Bolec comes to visit us with a bottle of apricot brandy, cherries, apples or figs for the editorial board.

Mr. Krstic regularly calls us if we make a mistake in the issue number …

– The issue number of Danas is not 8943, but 8942 – he sends an e-mail like this if we make a mistake in the number in the editorial mess.

Joca Otasevic always came to our aid: we announced a special issue for May 9 and a reprint of the famous comic “Never a Slave”, with Mirko and Slavko, but two days before the press release we realized that our liaison officer from Gornji Milanovac sent the comic “Never a slave” in which there were no Mirko and Slavko! We started to whine, but Joca found Mirko and Slavko in his archive in Vozdovac and rushed to the door of the editorial office as a good spirit.

Every June 9, Joca brings a T-shirt with the number of the new year in which Danas is entering written on it as a gift.

These are just a few of our readers we know personally. Congratulations to all the readers who are celebrating today, because it was honourable to make Danas, but it was even more honourable to read it.

Aleksandra Subotic: Danas is a medium we are proud of

From the moment we took over Dan Graf in March last year, the Danas editorial staff has become a significant part of the United Media family. Although a small company in the corporate sense, they have taken an important position in our environment. We appreciated their sacrifice and desire for survival, as well as their unwillingness to sacrifice their independence for that, firmly defending the integrity of journalism at all times.

We knew that it was an endeavour that would always be at the mercy of many, but we have already learned that well by creating new media houses that are run exclusively by professionalism.

I had the honour to meet Mr. Dusan Mitrovic, one of the founders of Danas and long-time director of Dan Graf, to talk and plan the future of the editorial office. Unfortunately, Dusan left us too early and did not get to see how Danas is now advancing on the path he and the founders set out. Such a path is always the most difficult, but the only possible one in a profession responsible to the whole society, such as journalism.

The editorial office of Danas is not in the same position now as it was only a year ago. They recognized the importance of adapting to market demands, new trends in the way content is consumed, the importance of digital transformation and responded to them in a very short period of time. They continued to grow towards a wider audience, carefully preserving what the essence of Danas is – credible, professional reporting. Danas preserved its loyal readers of the printed edition, and is now read by millions on the web portal, which is among the 10 most read in Serbia.

I congratulate the entire Danas editorial board on the extraordinary success they have achieved in the past year.

I would also like to thank our investors who, despite the great expansion of the group in European countries, highly appreciate such endeavours as Danas – those that contribute to the well-being of citizens and the public interest in the countries in which we operate.

Hearing about the events of the past, I am not sure whether the status of the independent media has changed at all, or has degraded even more in today’s Serbia. It is being heard more and more often that we do not know what the media scene would look like without the media operating within United Media. On the one hand, we are disappointed with the fact that there are few media that have the courage to be professional, and on the other hand, we are proud to be able to provide impartial information to citizens through our media, which is crucial for the development of any society.

Danas is a medium we are proud of.

I am convinced that you will continue your freedom mission, because you can’t do otherwise. Happy 25th birthday!