I had met Veran Matic soon after he established a small local station, Radio B92, in May 1989, in times when he used to throng with the team of young journalists in the tight premises of the Belgrade House of Youth (Dom omladine building), on the corner of Makedonska and Decanska, in the heart of Belgrade. For five years back then, he was irreversibly infected with air waves. He cooperated with the Zagreb based Radio 101 and from that period dates the friendship with Hloverska Novak Srzic, Davor Ivankovic and Ivo Skoric. When on October 5, 2000, regime of Slobodan Milosevic had fallen down, Matic had an opportunity to see that the police took care of him for a while. Not in the same way as today, though. He was suspicious for his cooperation with Radio 101, one of the “enemies” of the then ruling Yugoslav regime, so they used to eavesdrop on him. A bit thick police file that was given to him for his review, was heavily plucked: when Milosevic’s secret services had fallen apart, lots of documents were either destroyed or ended up in private collections of the local spies.

Zagreb was and still is one of Matic’s calf love, not only due to his cooperation with the cult Radio 101, but also due to the fact that he spent part of his youth in the capital of Croatia. Namely, back in 1981, he used to spend his military service in Zagreb; he was military policeman in the then barrack Marshal Tito, but the year spent in the uniform is not part of his life that he gladly remembers and is nostalgic about. The only thing that he would like to do again that he used to do that year is Sunday release and spending time in town that got under his skin, and going to visit his relatives in Novo Precko to taste unforgettable pasta tatters. Matic’s worldview was quite to the contrary of the known saying “A Serb goes gladly to the army”. Five years after the end of military service, he will spend ten days in prison, as in 1986 he preferred to go to Split and attend big youth festival, instead of responding to military exercise. He went to jail “armed” with a bag full of books, to the astonishment of the criminals, who got in touch with paper only while scrolling through pornographic magazines.

Reading is Matic’s incurable disease. Sasa Mirkovic, Matic’s longtime close associate, and the most serious candidate for assuming the position of the assistant for information to the Serbian minister of culture Ivan Tasovac, had told us an interesting anecdote pertaining to this passion. When Matic and his spouse bought their first car, he didn’t care of its strength and whether it is oil or gasoline car, minivan or limousine, the only thing he was interested in was whether passanger’s front seat can be equipped with a light bulb, so that he will be able to read during the ride. Matic himself does not have driving license and he spends all the time within the car reading. Numerous books in his office are by no means mere decoration that those who want to make an impression of reading a lot like to pose in front of. However, Matic is not only a passionate reader. In the media empire that he constructed – apart from radio and television, there is also most visited internet portal on the Balkans – he also established publishing house Samizdat B92 with more than 350 published titles, from belletristic literature and fiction, to memoir works.

He is not happy with being placed among Belgrade celebrities. His public exposure in the work he performs had simply pushed him into the circles of celebrities. He is often in the company of the persons from the entertainment and film industry, top sports, the crème of Serbian political scene, Belgrade diplomatic milieu, or with people engaged in science, culture and media. Maybe he does not feel part of this star circle, but many perceive him as being its member. When he led a big humanitarian campaign “Battle for the Babies”, within which 210 incubators were provided for the maternity wards throughout Serbia, he was often in contact with the persons from red carpet. The biggest donor of this campaign, Serbian “copper king” Milan Popovic closely cooperated with Matic, so “media magnate of civil Serbia”, how Matic was depicted by one Croatian weekly, often spent time with Severina. It is not public knowledge that photos of Severina, Milan Popovic and their one-and-a-half-year old son Alexander while receiving “the medal of baby hero”, that used to tour through all the media in the region, was made by Veran Matic. Popovic had donated more than EUR 1 million for this campaign, so little Alexander, together with father Milan and mother Severina proudly posed in front of Matic’s camera.

On the other hand, Veran Matic, a celebrity that does not want to belong to this circle, was caught by the camera with many persons from red carpet. So, on the big MTV fiesta, he was filmed when he received prestigious “Free Your Mind” Award from the hands of the member of a planetary famous band R.E.M, Michael Stipe. Namely, socializing of American celebrity with the Serbian that does not want to be called so, had continued in 2004 on the back stage of the Belgrade Fair where members of R. E. M. had performed in front of 12.000 of young people, while real delirium took place when Stipe showed up in the end wearing B92 T-Shirt.

Prone to All-Star sneakers and jeans, Matic does not find it difficult to wear tailcoat, when it is a dress code. Unfortunately, there is no photo of him wearing tailcoat in New York, on the occasion of receiving the Award of the US Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) back in 1993. However, he was caught with a tie on one of very rare photos, when together with the widow of the killed Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, in October 2009, he received one of the highest French decoration, the Knight of the French Legion of Honor medal, in recognition for his persistent and ongoing fight for media freedom while heading B92 Television. In the rationale for this award, French Ambassador in Belgrade Jean-François Terral, while addressing Chevalier (Knight) Matic and placing the medal on his lapel, said: "As a humanist above all, as well as an exquisite journalist, you are the personification of the fighter for democratic values, fighter for media freedom and fighter for the promotion of the civil society values”.

A tie that Matic wore while receiving French medal that was established back in 1802 by Napoleon, is not always comfortable piece of clothing for ceremonial and official occasions and it is opposed to Matic’s untrammeled nature. The white one, with blue and grayish stripes that he wore on this ceremony, he borrowed from Milivoje Calija, B92’s marketing director at a time, who later gave him this tie to have it as memento. Still, Matic prefers unbuttoned shirt, although at the door of his office, quite a collection of ties dangles, to be at hand when needed for specific occasion, when he needs to go urgently to the ambassador’s reception or to attend ceremony where dress code demands wearing a tie.

Although he received numerous prestigious international awards that anyone could envy him for, everyone who knows Matic and his modesty, is aware that this genuine humanist, fighter for media freedom and human rights, is feeling much more comfortable when, at the end of every year, he wears red clothes belonging to Santa Clause, and glues artificial white beard over his own grayish beard, ready to give away Christmas and New Year presents to the kids of his employees (up to 250 children). To see happiness on children’s faces presents indescribable joy for him, but as every good Santa Clause, Matic also gets to know from the parents about children’s bad habits, so he tends to reprimand them mildly for their mischiefs. He told me that such pedagogical strategies are not always so practical. Namely, once he rebuked an older boy that still used the blessing of diapers by saying that potty is better solution, though. Little hero suppressed defecating for three days after that, so terrified parents had to ask Matic to put on his Santa clothes again and to reassure this boy that full diapers are not a mortal sin yet.

If we could say for anyone that he/she had nothing to do with politics, then it is so true when it comes to Veran Matic. Nevertheless, the politics had surely dealt with him. He was on top of the list of state enemies of Milosevic’s regime. Airing of Radio B92’s program was banned on several occasions, while only few hours prior to NATO intervention and air raids on Serbia, on March 24, 1999, Matic was apprehended and imprisoned in the biggest Belgrade police station, that was evacuated as a possible target of air raids. He claims that this was one of the worst days in his life: locked up and helpless, he waited for NATO bombs. Soon, under the pressure of the international community, Matic was released from prison.

This was rather dangerous time for journalists. Those days, he remembers, he felt as if he jumped out of the sentence that his colleague Sasa Vucinic had uttered on a certain meeting of independent journalists in Tirana in 1992, when someone provoked him asking him to define phrase independent journalist. He replied: This is when everyone hates you. This is exactly how Matic felt in March and April 1999 when, on one hand, he was proclaimed traitor in his own country, while on the other, due to his opposing air raids, many foreign friends had marked him as Milosevic’s collaborator in New York Times, although just in that time, he was a target within the country, which is why he had to secretly retreat to Montenegro at the end of May, saving his head.

When on April 11, 1999, in downtown Belgrade, in Svetogorska Street (then called Ivo Lola Ribar Street) just a few hundred meters away from the building where Matic lives, Slavko Curuvija, journalist of Daily Telegraph got killed, Matic was one of the people on the hit list. He will find this out after NATO air raids in June 1999, when a colleague, an editor of Belgrade daily, met him on the street, and asked him whether their common friend had passed on a message to him on Curuvija’s funeral. This journalist got information on preparations for Matic’s liquidation in the Information Ministry. However, the message hadn’t reached Matic. The person that was supposed to pass this information on to Matic, hadn’t had strength to do so. So, that man consulted with one of Matic’s acquaintance that also thought that it is better not to disturb him. The role of Radio B92 was perhaps crucial for creating atmosphere in which Milosevic’s regime fell apart. This was one of the rare, but surely the loudest media oasis, that gave Serbia a chance to hear the voice of opposition and democratic forces eager to live in different Serbia. Many Matic’s acquaintances with the politicians date back in that time, and those politicians will, after the fall of Milosevic, on October 5, 2000, take over power in Serbia.

With some of them, with Zoran Djindjic, for example, and with subsequent leader of Democratic Party and President of Serbia Boris Tadic, he got acquainted much earlier. With Tadic and Dragan Djilas, present president of DS and long time mayor of Belgrade, he was very close. He knows Djilas from the beginning of Radio B92, where Djilas used to work for a while as journalist and editor. There are lots of mutual photos of Tadic and Matic and a bunch of exchanged SMS messages, also in time of Tadic’s term of office. But this was the relationship of two old acquaintances, that Matic had already kept under control, not allowing that their long personal acquaintance have any impact on the professional objectivity of the media house he leads.

Although Matic’s television had tough clashes with the members of Serbian Radical Party, in time of the reign of Vojislav Seselj, but afterwards as well, Matic is today in correct relations with the most powerful man in Serbia, first deputy of the Serbian Government, Aleksandar Vucic. Former radical, today president of Serbian Progressive Party, Vucic often contacts Matic, while their cooperation commenced in an unusual way – when Vucic wholeheartedly accepted Matic’s idea to establish serious state commission that will investigate the circumstances of the murders of three journalists, thus giving it strong political boost.

While Matic tours me through the labyrinth of the long halls of the Palace of Serbia, in order to show me where, due to Vucic’s advocacy, the commission got premises and excellent working conditions, we conclude that politics is after all a very peculiar plant. While Democrats, close to Matic in ideological sense ruled the country, among them a bunch of good acquaintances as already mentioned Tadic and Djilas, such a commission was not possible to establish. Now, when all the power belongs to those with who Matic fought, the commission is not only established but it works excellently. It has all the help from the authorities, police and secret services, resolved to take of the burden of the killings of three journalists off the state back, and with the clear aim of punishing those responsible for it.

It is not easy to balance in the media world, not only when it comes to politics, but show business as well. Many criticized Matic when Television B92, the first broadcaster to do so in Serbia, had started airing internationally popular Big Brother. They wondered how come that Big Brother ended up on television that is known for airing serious programs, serious investigative journalism themes and an exquisite news program, famous for its unbiased reporting which was unattainable to RTS and other broadcasters in Serbia. They considered it to be “foreign object”, mere commercialization that will make all other efforts trivial. Matic replied shortly: "We have always aspired to be independent, and there is no such thing without good ratings”. Indeed, Big Brother, but also other shows such as quiz Who wants to be a Millionaire, had increased rating results and marketing income, while B92 hadn’t lost anything of its credibility. It attracted new audience, but it also pushed Matic towards celebrities once again, no matter how hard he opposed this. Those programming innovations attracted new audience thanks to the shows that were not present on other TV channels: shows on war crimes, such as documentary on Vukovar that was seen in reruns by at least one million viewers.

Matic’s strong exposure to the public and his constant presence in the media placed an impenetrable barrier when it comes to his private, family life. Available and jovial, open and sincere, he will close up as a shell when someone wants to touch his intimacy. Only once, in hundreds of interviews he had given, he will say that his wife that lives with him for almost three decades in a harmonious marriage, is his first love, high school sweetheart, adding that his huge media exposure would be even harder to his wife if she would have to take part in it. Just like him, she does not want to belong to celebrity circle, and when circumstances demand, they show up on the same event, but they come separately. That is how Matic protects his spouse’s privacy, as he is not able to protect his own, being a public figure. Still, on one event, camera had caught the two of them together. Knowing that this paparazzo shot will be published, Matic said to the reporter that the woman he was with is his mistress. The reporter fell for it and he published that as a fact.

He patiently posed on that rainy Belgrade day wherever photographer of Svijet wanted him to: in his office, together with his dog Grej ("we even resemble one another, while our characters are the same”, he will say, joking), in Television B92’s studio, in the Palace of Serbia, in the Cultural Center REX in Jevrejska Street and in restaurant Oscar. He even posed with the policemen in plainclothes that monitored every move he makes. However, he kindly prevented any doubt of the camera entering into his apartment. It was easier to persuade him to wear a suit on that cold day, including wearing a tie, or a tailcoat and standing in front of the fountains on Nikola Pasic Square, instead of sitting on the sofa in his living room. The best we were able to extract is his consent to shoot his daughter Ana, who works as editor’s assistant in the publishing house Samizdat B92. She often volunteers in different humanitarian campaigns, especially in the Shelter for street children. As her father, she is a blood donor, and she also registered herself for potential donor of bone marrow. Matic is proud of Ana, equally as he is proud of his younger son Djordje who studies illustration and animation, thus working on issuing his own comic, texts and illustrations.

The principle that he uses in raising children is simple: giving them personal example, without big words and pedagogical poems. He is content because his children are generous and altruistic, who foster their friendship and are popular among their friends. It is also significant that they had a sense of humor, the trait that he himself possesses.

Matic’a acquaintances he used to talk to, confirmed my belief that he is primarily a humanist, and then all the rest. His life’s campaign “Battle for the Babies” had helped that prematurely born children survive, thanks to the use of up-to-date incubators. Similar campaign is being conveyed outside Serbia, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, while in Croatia, this campaign is known as “Thumb up”. The campaign designed by Matic, is being carried out in Croatia under the patronage of the president of the republic Ivo Josipovic, while Jutarnji list also supports it. However, Battle for the babies is not the only humanitarian campaign he used to convey. He engaged himself largely in buying of mobile mammography unit, constructing and equipping several safe houses for the victims of family violence, while he is most worthy for raising awareness with the citizens on the importance of voluntary blood donation. He himself gave blood for more than 30 times. He supports the work of soup kitchens for the elder population, and he is especially active in helping Kosovo’s remote enclaves. Recently, within the soup kitchen, he opened up goat farm in order to strengthen the self-sustainability of the soup kitchen.

He was born in the vicinity of Sabac, the city in Serbia best known for its fair. He used to study World Literature on the Faculty of Philology of Belgrade University. Therefore, his passion for reading is not unintentional. The one towards sports dates back in his youth when he used to be a promising football player of the local team of Macva. It is hard to tell that travels are his passion, but he would like them to become passionate. He toured through the most important European and international metropolis, but mainly in haste and business related. He visited New York ten times, but in the city that never sleeps, he enjoyed less than a tourist who came to be there for a day or two. Everything was subordinated to business and numerous commitments. He would like to travel light as a globetrotter, but even then he wouldn’t miss spending several days at sea, in Opatia, where he goes regularly for several years now. And of course, he would like to be without the guys in plainclothes with the headset who wait for him in the morning in front of the building in Takovska Street, in a black police Mercedes Puch.