Aleksandar Tijanić
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Aleksandar Tijanić (Александар Тијанић), Serbian journalist and current national TV director, was born in Đakovica, Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia on 13 December 1949. Throughout his colourful career he's been a star columnist for leading newspapers and magazines in SFR Yugoslavia and Serbia, chief executive of several prominent TV stations, political advisor to some of the most notable figures in recent Serbian politics, and finally even Minister of Information for 4 months in the government headed by PM Mirko Marjanović.
Tijanić is definitely a polarizing figure: he is both loved and hated with equal gusto by substantial sections of Serbian society. Never the one to back away from a fight, and always wearing his feelings and opinions on his sleeve, he gathered a great deal of admirers as well as enemies throughout the years. Recently, an entire book solely devoted to denouncing him as a person and a professional was published in Belgrade.
[edit] Early life
After finishing high school in his home town, Tijanic moved to Belgrade to study journalism at University of Belgrade's Faculty of Political Sciences. He never finished his studies.
[edit] Journalism career
After working his way up during late 1970s and early 1980s in Politika publications such as Auto Svet, he got a sought after job at NIN magazine where he first wrote for the supplement on vehicules and eventually advanced to a position on the editorial board.
Tijanić also worked as a political columnist for Split-based weekly Nedjeljna Dalmacija, which later earned him the nickname of Giant of Croatian Journalism. In his columns he often used to express views critical of Yugoslav government and Communism - something that his Croatian colleagues, silenced after collapse of Croatian Spring, seldom dared to do. His columns ended in 1990, following the shift in that magazine's editorial policy and a column deemed too critical of the new Croatian vice-president Antun Vrdoljak.
His job in NIN was a springboard for other top editorial positions. In mid-1980s he was editor-in-chief of Intervju, another weekly magazine from Politika family, followed by an editing stint at Sportski žurnal sports daily in June 1991.
In the meantime, during the first part of 1991, he was part of the hosting trio on Umijeće zivljenja talk-show along with Mirjana Bobić-Mojsilović and Dragan Babić. Tijanić conducted memorable interviews with, among others, Milovan Đilas, notable communist dissident who at the time returned to Yugoslavia after a 20-year exile, and Stjepan Mesić, at the time high ranking official of Franjo Tudjman's Croatian Democratic Union and soon to become last president of SFR Yugoslavia's presidency.
In 1993, Tijanić became the head of programming at the recently launched TV Politika.
