Tanjug was the sole state-run news agency in Serbia. Established in 1943, Tanjug was shut down in 2015 and privatized in 2021.


Media assets

News agency: Tanjug

State Media Matrix Typology: Captured Private (CaPr)


Ownership and governance

Tanjug used to be a state-controlled news agency until 2015 when the government stopped funding the agency, officially announcing its closure. Nevertheless, Tanjug continued to operate in a total legal vacuum. It is still a mystery in what capacity and what legal form the agency has been operating since 2016.

In 2021, it was reported that the company Tacno, established in November 2020, bought “the property rights” of the agency, which means that it can use its content, logo, online portal and some of the agency’s staff as it pleases. The owners of Tacno are Radoica Milosavljevic of RTV Pancevo (an openly pro-government station) and Minacord Media (company controlled by singer Zeljko Joksimovic and Manja Grcic, a former manager in various local media outlets).

Source of funding and budget

Tanjug used to be financed solely through a state subsidy. In the past few years, however, the agency began to have serious financial problems as it claimed that the state stopped funding the agency. In 2015, the agency stated that the government paid its last subsidy to the agency, a total of RSD 20.7m (US$ 210,000). Tanjug has since operated with funds that mysteriously arrived in the agency’s account. Local experts and journalists say that the government continued to cover some of the agency’s costs, but both Tanjug and state authorities denied that.

Editorial independence

Tanjug has been the official news agency of the Serbian government, notorious for its government-supportive content. Even in the past five years since the government officially announced the closure of Tanjug, the agency continued to produce pro-government propaganda. Nothing has changed in the agency’s editorial policy since its privatization in early 2021. 

No domestic statute and no independent mechanism of assessment or oversight that would validate Tanjug’s editorial independence have been identified.

October 2023