By: C.R.
The editor-in-chief of the magazine Demokracija, Dr Metod Berlec, addressed the participants of the meeting of supporters of the magazine Demokracija and Nova24TV yesterday in Visoko, Poljanska dolina. In doing so, he briefly summarised the historical development of the newspaper Demokracija and the attempts of the transitional left to silence it:
Dear friends of Nova24TV and Demokracija!
A warm welcome to everyone from my side as well! Greetings to everyone on behalf of the editors of the Demokracija magazine and the Demokracija online portal! I am glad that we gathered in such a large number in this beautiful place, in Poljanska dolina.
At this point, I want to say a few words about the historical development of the weekly Demokracija!
Newspapers called Demokracija have a long tradition in the Slovenian media space. In the years 1918−1919, Slovenska socialna matica published Demokracija as a social-democratic, but at the same time nationally oriented magazine.
The spiritual, intellectual, and substantive roots of the current Demokracija go back to the spring of 1947. The weekly Demokracija was published in Gorica and Trieste from 1947 to 1963 as a newsletter of the anti-communist Slovenian Democratic Union.
Its first editor, Andrej Slavko Uršič, was kidnapped by Ozna agents near Kobarid at the end of August 1947 and then brutally murdered a few years later in Udba prisons in Ljubljana. Yes, even back then, the Udba wanted to suppress the voice of the humiliated and neglected. Voice of the dissenters!
During the years of democratic changes in Slovenia 1989-1991, the independent newspaper Demokracija was published, which was initially the newsletter of the Slovenian Democratic Union, and later the newsletter of the Democratic Opposition of Slovenia – DEMOS. That is, the coalition that brought democracy, freedom, and an independent Slovenian state to the Slovenian nation in 1991!
Demokracija addressed people with topics that had been hushed up and consciously swept under the rug for decades in the totalitarian communist regime. Unfortunately, it stopped being published at the beginning of 1991.
The first issue of the current Slovenian political weekly Demokracija was published twenty-six years ago. September 1996. Despite initially poor material conditions and a small editorial team, which came from the then declining Slovene, with a clear, consistent, and critical editorial policy, under the leadership of Vida Kocjan, the newspaper gradually began to establish itself.
It was recognised and advertised by the public as the Slovenian spring weekly. In August 2000, Demokracija was redesigned and began to be published as a magazine. I myself joined Demokracija in 2001. First, I was a journalist, then deputy editor, and then editor.
And similarly, to what Jože Biščak mentioned earlier, I myself experienced attempts by the transitional left to silence us all the time, which is why I have been to court several times in the past two decades. They tried to silence us, but they failed. Also, because the editorial policy of Demokracija is always committed to the values of the Slovenian spring, Slovenian independence, Sloveneness, democracy, and European and Christian traditions.
We are committed to freedom, in the true meaning of these words! And not the kind of freedom we have now and imagine in the ruling!
We are committed to truth and justice!
For years, we have been bringing interesting content, many hushed up topics, and exclusive stories, as well as a huge variety of intellectual reflections, to the Slovenian media space.
Among our most high-profile stories were the publication of lists of Udba members, the exposure of wild privatisation, tycoon stories, the operation of the parastate, the disclosure of rigged probe processes, money laundering in NLB, and I could list more.
For me personally, it was probably the craziest when we published the exact list of Delo newspaper’s salaries in April 2006. On the same day, in the morning, as an editor, the personal data protection inspectors rushed to my office. They asked me to say who our source was. Of course, I did not tell them that. They left with a long nose!
Those days I was getting calls from both left and right. It was crazy. The information commissioner at the time, Nataša Pirc Musar, fined us an outrageous amount for this publication.
Even then, she was working in the interests of one political option!
Well, with the publication, we still proved why journalists at the time at Delo so fiercely defend the transitional left, its privileges, and criticise the spring parties. Not only out of belief, but also because they were well paid for this biased writing of theirs!
Anyway. For the good of Slovenia and all of us, we will continue to strive to be as good as possible as a magazine and online portal!
Let me just say at the end: Thank you all for your trust! By being a subscriber to Demokracija, or regularly buying and reading it, you contribute to the plurality of the Slovenian media space!
Thank you! You are also invited to buy the new magazine that we are publishing now! This is the entertainment magazine Nova Obzorja Križanka. We sell it on the stand, so you are invited to buy this new magazine there on the stands, as well as Demokracija magazine!
Thank you also to everyone who happily watches the show Beremo on Nova24TV! I am happy about the many positive responses! Thanks also to everyone who watches Nova24TV and supports it!
Thank you! And God bless you!
Dr Metod Berlec