Media portals in Kosovo between the economic agenda and the principles of professional journalism

The Internet has expanded the information and social mobilization space with over 4 billion users worldwide. Kosovo is part of this phenomenon and ranks among the top countries with high rates of Internet penetration and smartphone ownership. Web based news portals are considered specialised websites designed to provide easy access to information. Their business approach is based on ensuring high number of visits in their web site in order to dominate opinion making and thus to strengthen their economic offer for businesses community and other stakeholders. Most of these news portals are organized and operate as businesses, and this means that each portal can follow an economic agenda that risks diverting not only the principles of professional journalism, but also manipulating the public in certain issues. This paper explains how news portals benefit economically in Kosovo. The questions that the paper attempts to answer includes the ways and means of financing news portals and their income statements in the Kosovo Tax Administration, as well as their material benefits