Vecernje Novosti

Večernje novosti is a Serbian daily newspaper published in Belgrade since 16 October 1953. Its publisher, Novinsko-izdavačko društvo Kompanija Novosti a.d., has been owned since 2019 by the company Media 026 of the businessman Boban Rajić, who also owns Politika Novine i Magazini, the publisher of the daily Politika.

Media assets

Publishing: the daily Večernje novosti and its portal novosti.rs, and the portal nportal.rs, all of which are listed in the current impressum. According to the company’s undated description, it also publishes the magazines Treće oko, Oglasi, Kalibar, Zov, Bilje i zdravlje, Enigma and Tip, and is a co-owner of Radio Novosti. The classification of Večernje novosti does not automatically extend to these titles.

Ownership and governance

According to data of the Serbian Business Registers Agency (APR) published by CompanyWall, Kompanija Novosti a.d. is owned 100 per cent by Media 026 d.o.o. of Vučak, and Olivera Anđelković is its director. The same ownership was reported in December 2024. The current composition of any governing board could not be verified.

Before 2019 the company was majority-owned by the printing house Štamparija Borba, itself majority state-owned, whose shareholders approved the sale of the stake to Media 026 on 26 August 2019. Borba held 98.06 per cent of Novosti, and the price reported was about RSD 300 million, or EUR 2.5 million. In December 2019 the Association of Journalists of Serbia (UNS) said that Rajić’s company owned 98.055 per cent and the company Beodragos 1.95 per cent. Nova, citing Raskrikavanje, reported that the lawyer Igor Isailović, whom it calls a lawyer of the finance minister Siniša Mali, registered the company that bought Večernje novosti. No tender or public privatisation procedure for the sale was identified.

Media 026 has expanded its media holdings since. It was registered as the owner of 50 per cent of Politika Novine i Magazini on 25 May 2022 and of 100 per cent on 24 January 2025. In May 2026 NIN d.o.o. announced that it was transferring the publishing portfolio and brand of the weekly NIN to Politika Novine i Magazini. In October 2024 Media 026 bought the state’s 36.4 per cent stake in the publishing company NIP Borba for EUR 2.76 million. Nova describes Rajić as a close associate of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) officials Siniša Mali and Ana Brnabić.

Source of funding and budget

According to APR financial statements published by CompanyWall, the total revenue of Kompanija Novosti a.d. was RSD 1,153.2 million in 2023, RSD 1,022.5 million in 2024 and RSD 1,077.5 million in 2025, with net profits of RSD 144.4 million, RSD 8.3 million and RSD 30.5 million, and it had 171, 190 and 183 employees.

Raskrikavanje, the fact-checking project of the investigative portal KRIK, identified public contracts and grants worth about EUR 253,000 for the publisher in 2024 and more than EUR 286,000 in 2025. In 2025 most of the sum came through public procurement and about EUR 74,000 through media competitions, and the largest single contract, worth more than EUR 50,000, was with the Ministry of Culture. In 2026 the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications awarded Kompanija Novosti RSD 820,000 for the project titled Dva veka Matice srpske – temelj kulturnog identiteta in its co-financing of projects of newspapers and news agencies.

Editorial independence

Milorad Vučelić is listed as editor-in-chief of Večernje novosti, and Andrijana Nešić as editor-in-chief of the portal novosti.rs, in the current impressum. The company’s own description lists Vučelić as editor-in-chief since 2017.

Raskrikavanje counted 226 manipulative front-page items in Večernje novosti in 2023, 263 in 2024 and 197 in 2025, which by count placed it fourth, fourth and fifth among the six dailies it examined. For 2025 Raskrikavanje found that President Aleksandar Vučić appeared on the front page 160 times and never in a negative tone, that 157 of the 197 manipulative texts were unsigned, that the paper showed the protests exclusively through a negative prism, and that it gave unreserved support to the SNS and Vučić. In the monitoring of the Press Council from 1 July to 31 December 2025, 456 articles in Večernje novosti were found to violate the Code of Journalists of Serbia, out of 4,506 articles with violations in the nine dailies monitored.

The Complaints Commission of the Press Council found on 26 September 2024 that the Večernje novosti portal, together with Politika, Alo and Informer, breached the Code in texts about the journalist Tamara Skrozza, including the provision that the economic and political interests of the publisher must not influence editorial policy. On 27 February 2025 it unanimously found that a text of novosti.rs of 2 January 2025 about the students Lazar and Luka Stojaković breached, among others, the provisions on accuracy and on privacy. On 28 May 2026 it found that a novosti.rs text of 3 May 2026 about the Association of Electronic Media (ANEM) and its president Veran Matić breached the Code, including the provision on the publisher’s interests. On 30 July 2026 it unanimously found that novosti.rs, together with Informer.rs and Alo.rs, breached the Code in its coverage of Veran Matić, including the provision on the economic and political interests of the publisher.

In January 2025 the journalist Vojislava Crnjanski Spasojević was dismissed from Večernje novosti. The notice cited technological, economic and organisational changes, while she said that she was dismissed the day after posting a photograph from a protest on Instagram and after criticising the publication of the personal data of two students. UNS listed the dismissal among examples of censorship. In a first-instance judgment reported on 3 December 2025, the First Basic Court in Belgrade found Nešić guilty of insulting the lawyer Zdenko Tomanović and imposed a fine of RSD 450,000 and a security measure barring her from editorial duties for one year. In a separate civil case, the Higher Court in Belgrade ruled on 24 March 2026 that the publisher and Nešić pay RSD 70,000 to Nikola Ristić for harm to his honour and reputation caused by an article of 5 November 2024 that accused him of calling for bloodshed, and Novosti published the operative part of the judgment on 9 October 2026. No internal ombudsman or editorial statute of Večernje novosti was identified.

AI and digital policy

No publicly available Večernje novosti policy on artificial intelligence (AI) was identified for this update.

Classification rationale

Večernje novosti is classified CaPr on the combined evidence of private ownership by a businessman reported to have political connections, sustained coverage favouring the governing party and President Vučić, and reported pressure on journalists. The systematic editorial findings provide the strongest basis. Public contracts and individual ethical breaches are supporting evidence.

October 2026