A Bosnian Doorman-Journalist

I spoke to Sukrija Dzidzovic over Turkish coffee at a Bosnian cafe in Long Island City. He wore an olive-green suit and a yellow silk tie. His hair is gray and his manner was both confident and friendly. He leaned over to show me the paint on his fingernails.

Dzidzovic is the superintendent of a co-op building on the Upper West Side. He is also the publisher of Sabah, America's leading Bosnian-language newspaper. There are roughly 300,000 Bosnians living in the United States and Dzidzovic estimates that close to 100,000 of them still vote in Bosnian elections. Many of those voters read Sabah, so Dzidzovic occupies a special niche among west side supers. "For example, last month I was painting a door in my building. At 3 o'clock the Bosnian ambassador called to say that the president wants to talk to me." Dzidzovic told the ambassador that he did not get off work until 4. "Then I washed the paint from my hands. I took off my uniform. I put on a tie and my suit and I went to the United Nations to interview the President of Bosnia."

Like almost all of the Bosnians in the U.S., Dzidzovic and his family came to this country as refugees. They risked the dangerous trek through the hills to Croatia, where the American refugee program was based, and from there they were flown to New York. They arrived on March 1, 1995.

During the war Dzidzovic served as the chief press officer of the Bosnian army, but despite having lived through the long and bloody siege of Sarajevo, he still remembers his first year in New York as among the most difficult of his life. "Everything was different. This first period was more tough than four years of war. I had only $10 and my family. Also 4000 negatives of pictures I took during the war. I needed language, then employment, then rent." His first job in the city was laying tile. Later he became a photographer. "In Bosnia, my hobby was photography, so I used to work for three years at O'Henry's as a photographer and fashion designer. I did a lot of headshots. It was in this period that I learned English. I learned it through communicating with the models. However, I realized that there is no money in photography. In New York the money is in the buildings. I took a course in building management and I passed all my exams with the goal of making more money to support my newspaper."

Dzidzovic founded his newspaper in 1997; he explains its origin as a natural outgrowth of the chaotic refugee settlement program. "The American program saved my life," he says. "I am very thankful to the United States for saving the lives of 300,000 Bosnian refugees. But this is very important. We were spread out across the country-25,000 in New York, 30,000 in Chicago, 40,000 in St. Louis, 12,000 in Jacksonville... We came in a short period of time and all at once. Dropped down in planes. There may be a cousin in Jacksonville and a cousin in St. Louis, but they would not know each other. I wanted to connect these people. I started my newspaper to connect these people."

The initial print run of Sabah was 1000 copies, of which 700 routinely went straight into the trash. "The first year of the paper was tough. I gave my entire paycheck to the printer."

Slowly, however, Sabah found its audience; today Dzidzovic boasts 10,000, the second-largest readership of all Bosnian-language newspapers, including those published in Bosnia itself. He attributes a large part of the paper's success to its independence. "Every paper in Bosnia is supported by a political party. I am self-financing, so I don't walk to any party [line]. I am not connected to any political party, and as an independent paper it is popular. I give each party leader a chance to say what he wants to say. I put it on tape and then I print what he says. Sometimes I ask difficult questions, but this is important: I never ever change what he says. That's why people trust me."

Sabah contributors include many of Bosnia's best-known journalists, people Dzidzovic got to know as the army press officer in Sarajevo. But meanwhile, the paper is edited by a very select group of three: Dzidzovic, his wife and his eldest daughter. "Especially in the newspaper business, you must work with people you trust." Each member of the family, save the youngest who is still in school, is responsible for a third of the paper. Dzidzovic's daughter edits the sports page. Bosnia recently won third place in Europe's team handball competition. "We don't print only football [soccer]," says Dzidzovic. "Two months ago Bosnia won the World Championship in disability volleyball."

Dzidzovic is a Muslim, but he stresses that his paper aims to serve the entire Bosnian diaspora. I asked him whether Bosnia's ethnic divisions were mirrored in the American immigrant community. He says it's impossible to generalize. "For myself, personally, it's not a problem to have contact with other religions and nationalities. We have a long history of tolerance. But it depends. If he is someone who lost people in the war, if he is a father and a Serb orthodox killed his wife and three sons, you cannot expect him to be so forgiving. He will not enjoy going to a Serbian club."

I asked Dzidzovic how he manages his dual role as both publisher and superintendent. "Until 4 o'clock I don't care about my paper. I just close my eyes and focus on my building. The difference is that other supers watch HBO at night. I publish a newspaper. Maybe somebody would hide that he is a publisher and also a superintendent. Really, I am proud."