Bosnian satirical portal Šatro.info is officially closing after more than nine years of existence. Editor-in-Chief Haris Dedović has published the portal’s “obituary”, emphasizing that this is not a joke.
“With little sadness, we inform relatives, friends, neighbors, and readers that our dear Šatro (Tačka) Info has passed away on Sunday, January 10, 2025, at the age of 10. There will be no funeral, burial, or commemoration, because we didn’t make a big fuss when we gave birth to him, so we won’t make too much of a fuss when we say goodbye to him,” the editorial team said.
“We are shutting down Šatro info! And we are not kidding. After nine years, one month and 10 days, we are dancing the last tango on the keyboard. Today we are parting ways and will never see each other again in this form. Our story began nine years ago at a table where a few young, crazy journalists and creatives decided that Bosnia and Herzegovina needed a satirical portal that would work responsibly and regularly. Did it need to? We don’t know. We thought so and decided to create it. The only prerequisite was to work completely freely, according to our conscience and according to our principles. We are proud to say that we succeeded from the first to the last day in every text, in every montage, mime, video, campaign,” they wrote on Facebook.
They stated that they had published over 8,250 texts, 99.99% of which were their own work, while they rarely just reported the news, mostly when it was so bizarre that they had nothing to add. They pointed out that over the course of nine years, readers often commented that their texts made their day better, and for some, it ruined it.
They are proud that they embraced and supported every similar phenomenon and attempt to work as much as they could, and that they considered other portal teams as allies, not competitors.
“Of course, there were also many people who supported us out of pure love and desire to support us. As we do not want to endanger their jobs, safety or reputation, we will not mention their names, but we guarantee you that they know who they are and that, each one of them, they were told ‘thank you’ at least once, often and more than once. In the end, we owe you another ‘thank you’. To our readers, followers, audience. Although we said it by working freely above all, responsibly and honestly, let’s say it like this one more time”, they said.
They thanked the readers for every read, like, comment, share, criticism, suggestion, word of support, but also those who cursed, threatened and hated them, emphasizing that this also motivated them to do as they stated.
When asked why they are shutting down, they answered: “No, no one bought us to work for them, nor to stop. It’s not because of USAID, because we didn’t cooperate with USAID. It’s not for 1,000 other reasons that someone might think of. We are shutting down because we realized that we were fed up. Although we didn’t compromise on the quality of the content, we stopped developing new formats. We didn’t develop in a business sense, even though we could. We don’t blame anyone else for that. There were always opportunities and there will always be. We just didn’t use them. Maybe we got a little tired of the topics. Maybe we lost our will. Maybe we got a little old. We don’t know. This information will make some people sad, some happy, some won’t care. We believe that enough is enough from us. Let others, perhaps younger people, come and work. Maybe they already do, but in other formats. That’s all for this life from us.”
At the end, they mentioned that they do not plan to sell the portal’s Facebook page, and that the technical collaborators have expressed their readiness for the page to remain available to the public.
