Political satire and
social commentary are an integral part of editorial policy at
Novosti. This at some points caused strong criticism among some
Croatian nationalists with dogmatic views on historical events such as
Croatian War of Independence, who saw ridicule of
militarism,
Croatian military and national symbols as unacceptable excess of limits of
freedom of speech. Some of them were calling for cancellation of funding the newspapers from public money, criminal prosecution or
censorship. Some mainstream politicians in Croatia, including the president
Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, warned the editors that they shall take care what they are writing about implicitly calling them to use
self-censorship. President stated that she consider journal satire to be inappropriate and similar to cartoons of
Muhammad in foreign press such as
Charlie Hebdo. On 4 April 2017
Reporters Without Borders condemned "a campaign of lawsuits and verbal attacks that Croatian nationalist groups have been orchestrating for several months against
Novosti, the newspaper of Croatia’s Serbian minority." "Scientists brag that they found the reason for existence of an
appendix, while for Croatian sovereignty, up to this day, no one knows what it serves for, or does it even exists...." Initiators of the petition for repeal of the funding refer to the same tender criterion which enabled the funding of
Novosti, which states: "those who promote intolerance towards any national minority or majority will be banned from contesting on [this] tender in period of 3 years." ==Contributors==