Slobodna Dalmacija

Slobodna Dalmacija (lit. '

The first issue of Slobodna Dalmacija was published on 17 June 1943 by Tito's Partisans in an abandoned stone barn^[2] on Mosor, a mountain near Split, while the city was occupied by the Italian army. The paper was later published in various locations until Split was liberated on 26 October 1944. From the following day onward, Slobodna Dalmacija has been published in Split.

Although it was originally viewed as a strictly Dalmatian regional newspaper, during the following decades Slobodna Dalmacija, grew into one of the largest and most widely read daily newspapers of Yugoslavia, with its circulation reaching a zenith in the late 1980s. Slobodna Dalmacija owed much of that success to its humour section. Many of the most popular Croatian humourists, like Miljenko Smoje, Đermano Ćićo Senjanović and the trio that later founded the Feral Tribune, began their careers there. ^{[citation needed]}

Another reason for this success was the editorial policy of Joško Kulušić, who used the decline of Communism to allow the paper to become a forum for new political ideas. In the early 1990s Slobodna Dalmacija established a reputation as a newspaper with a politically diverse group of columnists, both left-leaning and those who supported the government.^[3][4] However, the ruling right-wing Croatian Democratic Union tried discredit it, calling the journalists too "liberal", "communist" or "Yugoslav". At that time it had a circulation of 90,000 to 100,000 copies.^[3]

In 1992, the government initiated proceedings against the paper, which would ultimately result in one of the most notorious scandals in recent Croatian history. Slobodna Dalmacija was privatised, which resulted in Miroslav Kutle, a Zagreb businessman, becoming the new owner. After a brief attempt to prevent the handover by strike, the paper was formally taken over in March 1993.^[3][4]

After the war ended in 1995, Slobodna Dalmacija was faced with serious financial problems. In the late 1990s the newspaper was again taken over by the government. However, it retained its distinctively hard-line nationalist stance, even during the first year of Prime Minister Ivica Račan's left-of-center government.^[4]

In 2005 Slobodna Dalmacija was reprivatised again. This time it was sold to

In 2014 it was bought by Marijan Hanžeković along with EPH and became more of a right-wing newspaper. There have been situations where left oriented journalist were forbidden to write what they want (such as Damir Pilić in 2015). EPH fired journalists from the liberal spectrum such as Boris Dežulović) while several far-right journalists were hired.^[6]

Editors-in-chief

References