By: Janez Remškar
For as long as I can remember, the official, national, media have been deceiving us! In the world, the media scene, whatever it is, is generally balanced! Why? Because the economic power of society is balanced, because it was created over time, based on the abilities of individuals and groups, and in terms of politics, it was distributed both to the left and to the right.
Here that is not the case! The majority of the media, I mean exclusively the daily news programme, have moved strongly to the left! Throughout the post-war period, the Slovenian Reporter, Delo, even Pavliha newspaper, not to mention RTV SLO, were controlled by the communists! This continued even after independence. In the process of privatisation, on the basis of the law on privatisation, adopted during the government of Dr Drnovšek, in preference to the successors of the communists and thus came to economic power and thus to the control of the media! Hence the long period of chairmanship of the programme board by Mr. Dr Kocjančič, and then by Mr. Baškovič, both of whom were high officials during the former totalitarian system! Even the composition of the programme board never allowed at least a balanced news programme!
Now that this has happened for the first time, the journalists of the news programme are horrified. Horrified and “hurt” to the point that they call their colleagues who do not think the same way dogs! Mr. Štefančič, whose show Studio City was among the most unbalanced, allowed himself to remark that there are “fucking more” of them, the leftists! At the same time, no journalist from the group of protesters had any comments in terms of hate speech! Moreover, the statements of the candidate for Prime Minister Dr Golob about the fascists who were supposed to be in the government and later, before the second round of presidential elections, that they, Svoboda, would not allow the dark forces to take over this place, was extremely undemocratic! And again, there was no outrage from “democratic, professional” journalists. There is plenty of outrage from these “honest” journalists with every tweet from Janez Janša! Any honest, impartial person, Slovene, can see this. Of course, if that is what he wants and if he does not have economic interests related to the Gibanje Svoboda party in the background!
As for freedom, we already had it, plenty, after 1945: Joke! It is only necessary to read a few books with published documents (to avoid accusations of falsification of history). Those killed and murdered by the Communists after the war, were in fact the freest. How free others were, let’s say how controlled were world-known writers such as Boris Pahor, Edvard Kocbek, and Drago Jančar is also a must read! Can ex-communists and their successors still talk about the falsification of history?
I believe they will continue to stand by their truth regardless of historical facts! Even more, they will warn us that we must look ahead, that young people are only interested in the future! Or really? Do they not know the words of every professor-historian from high school that history warns us and teaches us! They do not know this for their needs of controlling the authorities and above all the economy!
Dear Slovenians! Will we continue to persist and calmly watch the aggressiveness “a la Marcel Štefančič at company”? I am convinced that a different approach is also needed from our side, which we must start with a serious request and activity for the abolition of the mandatory contribution for RTV Slovenia!