Jelena Subin
BBC journalist
He doesn't wear a white coat, he doesn't have a stethoscope, but he has the best recipe for personal and political progress, sometimes to unimaginable proportions.
While you are under his therapy and control, success can be guaranteed.
But also failure.
He doesn't hold a scalpel in his hands, but rather skillfully manipulates words and the way he speaks, because he doesn't change the facts, but the impression of what is said.
"Spin doctors", a profession that can start a war without a single shot fired or start several fires in a second without a shred of fire, have become an indispensable part of every statesman's team in recent decades.
"Behind every successful politician is a spin doctor."
"That is, in fact, the job of every chief of staff in the country," Krešimir Macan, a former long-time media advisor to Andrej Plenković, the Croatian Prime Minister, tells the BBC.
The job of a "spin doctor", according to the encyclopedia Britannica, involves attempting to control the way something is described in public in order to influence people's opinions and attitudes.
The skill originated in America, for commercial purposes, but when it began to be used in politics, it quickly spread from the USA and England to other countries.
"In Serbia, they have mostly embraced the Israelis, because they are good for poor countries. The Americans and the English are too expensive for Serbia," Lazar Džamić, a communications expert and lecturer at the Faculty of Media and Communications, told the BBC.
Balkan Research Network BIRN recently announced that Israeli "spin doctor" Srulik Einhorn was campaigning for Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić in Belgrade.
According to media reports, the Israelis have previously designed election campaigns for Vučić.
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Israel, Serbia and spin doctors
The Serbian president has a long history of working with Israeli propagandists, BIRN writes.
His first consultant from this country was Asaf Eisen, in the campaign for mayor of Belgrade in 2004.
According to BIRN, Vučić stated in 2012 that he and Eisen were long-time friends and that, thanks to his advice, he narrowed his lead in the elections for the first man of Belgrade.
Another Netanyahu advisor Aaron Shaviv he worked for Vučić during his 2017 presidential campaign.
According to the Organization for Organized Crime and Corruption Ocrp, Shaviv played a role in the smear campaign against opposition figure Dragan Đilas, which was dubbed the "Mauritius Affair" in the domestic media.
"Serbia shines through the president" is the title of a column written by wrote the third 'Vučić's Israeli' Srulik Einhorn in the Jerusalem Post in 2023.
How they transmit Israeli media, This marketing expert is wanted by the prosecutor's office in Israel.
They will suspect him., allegedly, that he is one of the associates of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, who was paid by Qatar to promote this country in the Israeli media.
Einhorn was Vučić's propaganda advisor for years, BIRN writes.
Vučić is the most skilled in political communication among regional politicians and uses all the techniques, assesses Krešimir Macan.
"If he weren't the best communicator in the region with all the associates he has, it would be a waste of the money he's allocating."
"There was no one who didn't advise him, even the best Israeli political campaign creatives in the world," says Macan.
Serbia also has spin doctors, and one of the most mentioned is Vladimir Beba Popović.
Montenegrin media called him out "whisperer".
During the 1990s, he led the political campaigns of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), the broad coalition of parties that ousted Slobodan Milošević from power.
After October 5, 2000, he was appointed Secretary of the Communications Bureau in the Government of Serbia under then Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić.
He is the founder of the regional organization Institute for Public Policy, and in recent years he has been mentioned as an associate of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party and President Vučić, as well as former Montenegrin President and Prime Minister Milo Đukanović.
Every party must have a professional communications consultant, says Džamić.
"He shapes the messages that politicians deliver."
"One thing is said abroad, and another is for the domestic audience," says Džamić.
Who are spin doctors and where does the name come from?
Spin doctors need to know which story to amortize and how to spin it in the appropriate direction.
"They got their name from the famous spin balls in baseball, a team sport, where you need to know how to spin them without your opponent being able to deflect them and go in the direction you want."
"The job of spin doctors, who provide political consulting, is to spin the story in the desired direction and ensure that the glass is always half full, not half empty," says Macan.
These communication masters create the entire image of the person they work for and make them appear better through strategically designed campaigns.
The term was first used by writer George Orwell in the novel "1984".
That very year, nearly four decades after the novel was published, The phrase 'spin doctor' was used as a media advisor in the campaign of Ronald Reagan, President of the United States from 1981 to 1989.
"Professional spin doctors devise certain strategies to distract the public's attention from some important issues and redirect it to something else, more precisely, to make grist for their mill."
"Successful spin doctors have good strategies, use different linguistic and stylistic devices, and are often charismatic," says Stefan Janjić from the Department of Media Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad.
The work of spin doctors is based on perfect knowledge of the mechanisms of information circulation and the use of psychological techniques to condition the masses, writes Italian expert Marcello Foa in his book "Masters of the Media".
A spin doctor is someone who likes to work behind the scenes and is rarely in public, describes Foa.
Alistair Campbell, from Iraq to Belgrade
British media expert Alistair Campbell is among the most resounding names when the term "spin doctor" is mentioned.
"While he was media advisor to Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister, Campbell was the ultimate spin doctor," says Macan.
During the 2003 Iraq War, Campbell was one of the main propagators of the thesis about the alleged existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which brought politicians strong public support for the invasion of this country.
Seven years later, he found himself before a committee of inquiry into the Iraq war, and Blair was resolute. denied that the government misled parliament and the public with intelligence to justify the invasion.
He had strong influence in politics at the time and was considered a controversial figure.
In 2015, Campbell was in Belgrade, to give a lecture to the spokespersons of the Government of Serbia on improving communications.
How Croatia tested the ground for a visa-free regime for Serbia
In the world of "spin doctors," one of the techniques is "balloon popping," says Macan.
"While I was an advisor to the Prime Minister of Croatia in 2003, I floated the story that visas for Serbian citizens would be abolished."
"I see, the media is not reacting. I repeat, they are still doing nothing. I say, abolish visas because you see that no one cares about it in Croatia," recalls Macan, who was an advisor to Plenković for 15 years.
This way, the public's reaction to potentially problematic decisions in the future is tested, he says.
"The media can't be on multiple fronts, which is why it's important when you have a bad story to air another one, or a better one," he says.
There is no politics without communication, and that is precisely the biggest challenge for the Serbian opposition, he believes.
"The Serbian opposition is not in the habit of communicating, and the government in Belgrade thinks two months ahead," says Macan.
Spin doctors are often not part of the official government team, but have another title, and become covert directors of a significant part of official communication.
"None of them will publicly admit that they are manipulators," Foa writes in the book.
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