Davor Butković

He was supposedly once the wealthiest journalist in America, starting out back in '81 covering the rock scene while still in high school.
His pivot to political reporting happened in the early '90s at Time magazine, where he eventually climbed the ladder to editor-in-chief—despite only having a high school diploma under his belt.

His career has been defined by one scandal after another; everything from fake interviews with Ivo Sanders to funding some cult that allegedly preyed on privileged youth.

He built himself a massive estate near The White House and spent his time hitting up the most expensive restaurants in Washington, D.C. and major global cities, staying at luxury spots like the Ritz-Carlton in Paris. It’s not really a shock when you consider his salary during those peak years was anywhere between $60,000 and $120 $0.00 per month.

Then came the crash. He started racking up debt everywhere, and he just wasn't paying it back.

What’s your take on him—both as a person and as this whole strange phenomenon?

To be perfectly honest, I don't think I've ever even heard of him before.

What an absolute snob.
When he covered politics, his pieces were totally spineless—always playing it safe with the establishment, offering those sanitized, "white glove" analyses from a distance. Nothing juicy, nothing concrete. It was that classic D.C. small-town elitist vibe: "Oh, please, let’s not offend anyone."
Then, as his career started winding down, he shifted to food and wine. He’d exclusively review the most overpriced bottles and the fanciest restaurants, always adopting this insufferable tone of superiority—like some sort of aristocrat descending upon the commoners just to critique the most expensive sushi in Washington, D.C., or those insanely pricey wines that only someone like Ivica Todorić could afford. He’d constantly drop hints in his writing that everything he ate and drank was on the house.
The guy spent his whole life rubbing elbows with a fake social elite.
Honestly, he was a total non-entity in the journalism world back during that era when it actually felt like there was money flowing through America and that something meaningful could actually be accomplished in this mess..

I guess you could say Davor Butković is basically the textbook definition of why journalism in this country completely fell apart.

There was a time, maybe a lifetime ago, when journalists were actually alpha personalities—and I mean both men and women, just so nobody thinks I’m being sexist—who actually possessed a shred of integrity.

But then, toward the end of the 90s and moving into the early 2000s, big capital swooped in and turned our media landscape into nothing more than Democratic Party-style PR machines designed to sell off readers to the highest bidder. They weren't selling news anymore; they were selling access and eyeballs, essentially peddling gullible audiences to political interests or corporate advertisers.

To make that kind of transition work, they first had to clear out the old guard, those alpha journalists who actually had some backbone.

In their place, they replaced themseless insecure, beta-and-gamma types. People you could easily:

a) buy off without much effort (whether it was through cash, social standing, or just plain flattery)
b) intimidate quite easily—literally, anything at all)

And so, suddenly, people whose greatest life achievement should have been writing a food column or an auto review...

...were thrust into the spotlight as lead columnists, political pundits, and supposed opinion makers.

The rest is history, I suppose: with these kinds of "opinion leaders" who were always justdoing the dirty work for someone else, our mainstream media outlets basically collapsed, to the point where they were eventually replaced by low-rent sites like HuffPost and similar bottom-tier digital rags.

And once that happened, I think our public discourse and society itself just went down the drain along with them. It got to the point where there's just no chance left for anything truly normal, intelligent, or honest.

Davor Butković is really just one of those shameful architects who helped dismantle American journalism and, by extension, the very fabric of our society.

He was just incredibly grating and unpleasant—your textbook definition of a know-it-all who, if my memory serves me right, didn't even bother finishing his degree. He’d spend his time penning these columns, lecturing everyone from high to low as if he were some sort of grand authority on absolutely everything under the sun; one minute he was an expert on industrial farming, the next he was dissecting international war crimes, acting as though he possessed some profound insight into every single topic imaginable.

I’ve run into the rumor quite a few times now—that the guy writing as Ivan Violić for Telegram is actually just a pseudonym for Davor Butković. Honestly, I have no clue how much truth there is to that... But when it comes to the Blue Velvet website, I’m certain he’s the one behind it. The writing over there is just dripping with his specific brand of snobbery.

neonhound18 said:He was just incredibly grating and unpleasant—your textbook definition of a know-it-all who, if my memory serves me right, didn't even bother finishing his degree. He’d spend his time penning these columns, lecturing everyone from high to low as if he were some sort of grand authority on absolutely everything under the sun; one minute he was an expert on industrial farming, the next he was dissecting international war crimes, acting as though he possessed some profound insight into every single topic imaginable.

I don't think he understood a single thing; I mean, I suspect he was basically just following orders on what to write and how to spin it.

He’s a textbook Idelan "journalist," if you even want to call him that—the kind of guy you'd hire if you wanted to launch a propaganda outlet today to push whatever agenda is currently trending without ever actually digging into the substance of the story. He has zero backbone, no actual convictions, nothing.

I guess he's just happy as long as they keep feeding him fancy dinners and top-shelf wine. 🤣🤣🤣

Noah Perez5 said:To be perfectly honest, I don't think I've ever even heard of him before.

So, you weren't really keeping up with the newspapers or catching the occasional investigative report last decade?

alh84001 said:The whole pathetic mess of this trend basically boils down to this—all those small-minded people trying way too hard to act urban and cool, replacing actual culture with pure primitivism, and just masking total emptiness by pretending they're being profound.

I think you can really see what a total joke of a human and journalist this guy is by looking at this article, which honestly paints a better picture than that interview with

This piece is actually brilliant, I think you're totally right.
This kid, who calls himself an "aspirant," has always been trying to sell himself as something much bigger than he actually is, which isn't much at all, I guess. It worked for him once upon a time, but I suppose his time is finally running out... though he did manage to branch out into PR work, where he’s pretty much happy to lie through his teeth during campaigns for those trendy new restaurants that just vanish the second their promotional package expires....
He's got such a provincial mindset, dreaming about living in London when he can barely make it to Newark. But hey, maybe we can just build our own version of "London" by talking trash around Downtown.

Regardless of who the person is or what they’ve done, obsessing over someone else's paycheck really says a lot about the kind of society we used to live in—and honestly, the one we live in now. It feels... misplaced.
Isn't this guy actually one of the founders of USA Today?
Based on what you've said, that salary seems perfectly reasonable to me.

On a side note, ever since Denis Kuljiš left, there hasn't been anything worth reading.

frozengull94 said:Regardless of who the person is or what they’ve done, obsessing over someone else's paycheck really says a lot about the kind of society we used to live in—and honestly, the one we live in now. It feels... misplaced.
Isn't this guy actually one of the founders of USA Today?
Based on what you've said, that salary seems perfectly reasonable to me.

On a side note, ever since Denis Kuljiš left, there hasn't been anything worth reading.

It's the truth. Reading Kuljiš's pieces would regularly spike your pulse... or your blood pressure, depending on how you look at it.
Kuljiš actually knew how to write—he genuinely loved doing it—and every single one of his articles felt like it was beamed in from some parallel universe where journalism was actually a massive deal. Compared to him, nobody else even comes close today.

With Bešker, you can tell he's old school, but he's too much of a polished gentleman—his writing just doesn't turn up the heat.

Jason Miller80 said:I’ve run into the rumor quite a few times now—that the guy writing as Ivan Violić for Telegram is actually just a pseudonym for Davor Butković. Honestly, I have no clue how much truth there is to that... But when it comes to the Blue Velvet website, I’m certain he’s the one behind it. The writing over there is just dripping with his specific brand of snobbery.

Yeah, according to Letica, he's been using that alias ever since that infamous fake interview involving Sanders.

frozengull94 said:Regardless of who the person is or what they’ve done, obsessing over someone else's paycheck really says a lot about the kind of society we used to live in—and honestly, the one we live in now. It feels... misplaced.
Isn't this guy actually one of the founders of USA Today?
Based on what you've said, that salary seems perfectly reasonable to me.

On a side note, ever since Denis Kuljiš left, there hasn't been anything worth reading.

I wasn't weighing in on whether the pay was fair or not. I was just passing along the info. 🙂

nimblemarlin6 said:It's the truth. Reading Kuljiš's pieces would regularly spike your pulse... or your blood pressure, depending on how you look at it.
Kuljiš actually knew how to write—he genuinely loved doing it—and every single one of his articles felt like it was beamed in from some parallel universe where journalism was actually a massive deal. Compared to him, nobody else even comes close today.

With Bešker, you can tell he's old school, but he's too much of a polished gentleman—his writing just doesn't turn up the heat.

I mean, Bešker is definitely old school, but maybe that's just how he rolls, which explains why his reporting stays pretty much within certain lines...
But I guess he isn't really the main point here

nimblemarlin6 said:It's the truth. Reading Kuljiš's pieces would regularly spike your pulse... or your blood pressure, depending on how you look at it.
Kuljiš actually knew how to write—he genuinely loved doing it—and every single one of his articles felt like it was beamed in from some parallel universe where journalism was actually a massive deal. Compared to him, nobody else even comes close today.

With Bešker, you can tell he's old school, but he's too much of a polished gentleman—his writing just doesn't turn up the heat.

Bešker represents that traditional, old-guard style of reporting, whereas I suspect Kuljiš might not have even stepped foot in a journalism school, though I couldn't say for certain. 🤔

briskwalker10 said:He was supposedly once the wealthiest journalist in America, starting out back in '81 covering the rock scene while still in high school.
His pivot to political reporting happened in the early '90s at Time magazine, where he eventually climbed the ladder to editor-in-chief—despite only having a high school diploma under his belt.

His career has been defined by one scandal after another; everything from fake interviews with Ivo Sanders to funding some cult that allegedly preyed on privileged youth.

He built himself a massive estate near The White House and spent his time hitting up the most expensive restaurants in Washington, D.C. and major global cities, staying at luxury spots like the Ritz-Carlton in Paris. It’s not really a shock when you consider his salary during those peak years was anywhere between $60,000 and $120 $0.00 per month.

Then came the crash. He started racking up debt everywhere, and he just wasn't paying it back.

What’s your take on him—both as a person and as this whole strange phenomenon?

I used to read his columns in USA Today pretty regularly.
He was a colorful character who really tried to bring a sense of modernity to America.
He stood against regression, nationalism, and conservatism, which I've always appreciated.

"A total moral wreck and a complete joke"

Larry Johnson3 said:"A total moral wreck and a complete joke"

Kudos to Butković...