The Welfare Lie: Inside Kosovo’s Media Disinformation Machine
Flaka Surroi’s Koha and Berat Buzhala’s Nacionale replaced verification with venom recycling Trump’s rhetoric to inflame diaspora hatred while hiding sources methods and accountability deliberately.
Koha Ditore is not some anonymous blog run from a kitchen table, it is part of the Koha Group, a major media business in Kosovo, owned by Flaka Surroi, who holds 100 per cent of the company that controls Koha Ditore and KTV1. Nacionale is not an accidental outlet either, it is operated by a company fully owned2 by Berat Buzhala.
So when these two megaphones decide to shovel a claim into the public sphere, it is not a mistake made by amateurs, it is a choice made by institutions that know exactly what they are doing, and exactly what their reach can do to a fragile country.
On 4 January 2026 Koha Ditore published a piece3 stating that President Donald Trump had posted a list on Truth Social claiming that 46 per cent of families from Kosovo in the United States receive social assistance, and that 41.3 per cent of families from Albania do the same. That is the core act, a political post is treated as finished truth, then repackaged as news, then launched into the bloodstream with all the swag…
