By: Dr Tamara Griesser Pečar
Media is often emphasised as the fourth branch of government. In established democracies, the media indeed monitor and oversee politics, primarily the government and authorities, which usually leads to appropriate actions taken by relevant bodies when abuses come to light. If irregularities are found, they are addressed or even punished. The first condition for this is, of course, media pluralism, which excludes brainwashing by a single option. Even in established media, the majority of journalists tend to lean left, but there is still a certain balance ensured because there are also different media outlets with a certain authority. However, in countries where democratic standards do not work or are not yet working, the majority of the media often function more as a propaganda machine for a particular political option.
Such is the case in Slovenia, which is currently regressing to times we thought were behind us. 80 percent of all Slovenian media is in the hands of the left political option. When this option is in power, it has the support of the majority of the media, but when it goes into opposition, these same media outlets follow suit. In opposition, these same media outlets shamelessly criticise what they supported when the left option was in power. When these media outlets receive hints from behind the scenes, they start preparing the ground for new faces that emerge as deus ex machina and win elections, all without presenting any programme to the voters. This indicates the success of this propaganda machine. In Slovenia, there is also no questioning of the large concentration of media under one media empire that supports the left option.
Of course, the role of journalists in a free world is not propaganda; it is only in dictatorships that the ruling party dictates public opinion. After World War II, free democratic Europe took the editorial rules of the BBC as an example, and the most important principles of these are truth, completeness, balance, and fairness. The emphasis is on journalists balancing freedom of expression with responsibility. If journalists in the majority of media outlets adhered to these criteria, they would critically monitor the actions of the ruling authorities, not just empty promises. They would alert voters to the fact that parties with new faces come to the polls without any substance, and above all, they should highlight the purges of the current ruling coalition, which shamelessly resemble those from 1945. Anyone who dares to have a different opinion is condemned to lose their position. It has become completely irrelevant whether someone is an expert in their field; what matters is only that they are “one of ours”. They should also monitor the work in parliament, obvious violations of the rules, and we should not overlook illegal acts and politically convenient irregularities.
Few private media outlets that are not left-oriented are under great pressure. A parliamentary commission has even been established with the purpose of at least disabling some of those media outlets that take the constitutional right to report differently. The previous leader of the parliamentary commission, who fell out of favour with the so-called Gibanje Svoboda party, clearly defined the purpose of this commission. This statement should have been followed not only by outrage in the media but also by an investigation, as it constitutes an obvious abuse of the powers held by members of parliament. However, nothing happened. We are actually witnessing an attempt to limit a constitutionally protected human right, namely freedom of speech – and of course, freedom of the press.
ONE OF THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF JOURNALISTIC CODE IS THE PRINCIPLE AUDIATUR ET ALTERA PARS (LET THE OTHER SIDE BE HEARD TOO).
If the majority of media outlets in Slovenia adhered to the basic ethical principles of journalism, the situation in the country would be dramatically different from what it is today. This applies primarily to public broadcasting, which, according to its statute, should be politically neutral and balanced. Its legal duty is to ensure the public’s right to information – regardless of whether what is being reported pleases journalists or not. It is more than obvious that public television does not adequately report on pensioner demonstrations and protests against the mayor of Ljubljana, while it extensively covered protests by a much smaller group of people during the previous government. For some time now, we have also been witnessing how individual propagandists at the public broadcaster, who are hardly deserving of the title “journalists” because they do not adhere to journalistic standards, try to silence colleagues who respect the principles of their profession. The current government, under the guise of depoliticisation, has completely subjugated public broadcasting with a law amendment passed urgently, deserving journalists with years of experience, including journalists and editors of news programmes, have either lost their jobs or have been demoted. The new management arranges decision-making procedures outside the laws.
In established democracies, it is not possible to dismiss journalists from public television without cause, place them on leave, or even offer them entry-level salaries, even if they have a long track record, while on the other hand, hiring new people in high pay grades without appropriate education is possible. Here, of course, the question of labour law arises – and whether it even works. However, it is, of course, possible to dismiss someone who does not adhere to the journalistic code or the principles of public media. The duty of a journalist at RTV is, in fact, to carefully verify the facts they disseminate, not to selectively choose them, meaning not to tailor information to fit a predetermined story or political orientation. They must strive to present all opinions and facts on a given topic. One of the basic principles of the journalistic code is the principle audiatur et altera pars [let the other side be heard too]. This is grossly violated in Slovenia. When this began to change in some programmes on RTV, they simply cancelled the majority of these programmes. Radio Television SWR in Germany has just dismissed a presenter who repeatedly expressed extreme political views on her private social media account – not even at her workplace, as is happening here. In their explanation, the responsible parties warned “that moderators must be neutral to protect the independence and credibility of the program”, and the journalist “did not achieve this neutrality in her activities on social media”.