By: Miro Petek
The media outlet for which we pay a communication tax summarised, in its recent report on the media‑freedom index by Reporters Without Borders, several interesting sentences that clearly illustrate the manipulations permeating the Slovenian media landscape. Let’s look at the sentence published on MMC RTV SLO (30 April 2026): “Slovenia’s decline in the ranking of 180 countries by 1.2 points, to a total of 72.9 out of 100, is not significant, and the reason for the drop is also the progress of other countries.” On this ranking, one of many dealing with media freedom, Slovenia placed 36th among 180 countries.
During Golob’s government, the situation in the media sector deteriorated, yet Slovenian journalists soften this by claiming that the decrease in points is not significant and, remarkably, that the reason for the drop is the progress of other countries. In this way, they implicitly conceal the responsibility of the ruling politics for the catastrophic state of the Slovenian media landscape. They suggest to readers that the decline in the ranking is minor, that such things simply happen, and that this small drop can easily be made up. Journalists therefore feel the need and mission not only to present facts, but also to guide us, to interpret, to downplay the seriousness of the decline – and they even place the comment that the drop is small before the actual reason for the decline, which is itself bizarre: the progress of other countries. So the problem is not the dismal state of the Slovenian media environment, but the improvement of others, which pushes us downward on the index. In the rest of the text, they gladly list and compare neighbouring countries that rank even worse. Since they cannot completely ignore the index or pretend that Slovenia did not fall, they soften it with phrases about how small the decline is. When I studied journalism at the then‑FSPN (today’s FDV), we analysed journalistic texts. I remember classes with Manca Košir, Slavko Splichal, Toma Korošec and others, and such manipulative and unprofessional writing would have been torn to pieces by students back then. Yes, we lived in ideological uniformity, but we knew what professional journalism was.
And that is not all. MMC reports that Reporters Without Borders are concerned about the state of the media, but not because of the recent declines, rather because a new right‑wing government is forming. This is a severe prejudgment, as the new government has not even been formed yet, let alone adopted any measures. These gentlemen, together with our media, are telling us that a right‑wing government is potentially dangerous, creating distrust in advance solely on the basis of political identity and ideological label. This fear‑mongering serves to diminish and obscure the responsibility of Golob’s government for the catastrophic state of the media sector, which is even worse than what the index reflects. Golob’s own statement, “We have committed ourselves to cleansing RTV of Janšism,” should alone have pushed Slovenia to the bottom of the ranking. And it is not only about the media. In Slovenia, a discourse has taken hold that a certain political orientation, the right or centre‑right, is inherently less legitimate and potentially dangerous, even before a government is formed after democratic elections.
Let us imagine that, with these same published data, a right‑wing government were in power – the interpretation would be entirely different. Based on past experience, we would be reading how the decline is enormous, how Slovenia should be deeply worried about trends of decreasing media freedom, how this signals ‘Orbanisation,’ political pressure, attacks on journalists and media, and of course, how democracy is threatened. The same statistics would take on a completely different tone, thunderous, predicting media collapse, and European commissioners and MEPs would already have their plane tickets booked for a visit to Slovenia.
