By Tanja Brkić (Nova24tv)
Požareport published an exclusive story on the portal, which based on documents and facts testifies to the very real political activism of the journalists and editors of the state-owned RTV Slovenia, which indifferently use direct censorship of news programmes information and other means and tools to protect the parallel mechanism within national television. This in turn also influenced the outcome of the recent parliamentary elections.
In his story, investigative journalist Bojan Požar revealed quite a few facts that prove the deliberate concealment of information from the public by some journalists and editors of RTV. Specifically, it is the team of the show Odmevi and a clarified case of concealing the story of Golob’s income tax return, which was planned for a certain day, but was postponed to a few days later for unexplained reasons.
The RTV editorial board did not react to Gregorčič’s revelation until after the elections
Nine days before the elections, the daily editor of Odmevi, Aleš Malerič, and the host of the show, Tanja Starič, censored an article on the salary or income tax of Robert Golob, president of the Gibanje Svoboda party, prepared for Odmevi by journalist Gašper Petovar. This was later publicly revealed on Planet TV during the show Slovenia’s Choice by Peter Gregorčič, President of the RTV Programme Council. Despite the weight of Gregorčič’s words, the team of Odmevi did not react to this until the winner of the election was known, and thus their favourite option, which is interesting, but also cowardly. After that, four days after the elections, Odmevi’s editors, presenters and journalists wrote a public letter accusing Gregorčič of “inadmissible pressure” on their work and even slandering Odmevi’s creators. They also addressed it to the General Director of RTV Slovenia Andrej Grah Whatmough, the Editor-in-Chief of the TVS news programme Jadranka Rebernik and some other official addresses, including journalists and journalists’ unions.
The Odmevi team arbitrarily decided not to present Golob’s income tax return
In the letter published on the Požareport portal, the statement of the president of the RTV programme council, Dr Peter Gregorčič, with which he revealed on Planet TV the concealment of Golob’s income tax return by the host and daily editor of Odmevi. Later it followed by the explanation of the Odmevi team, saying that Gregorčič “missed” the instructions of the editor-in-chief of the Information Programme Jadranka Rebernik at a meeting of the PS Commission for the Information Programme that the contribution on Golob’s income tax return was planned only later and not for Friday, April 15th, as he claimed. In the letter, they mentioned that they were “playing with the idea of mentioning Golob’s prediction”, but decided not to publish it, as other stories were supposed to require a full and independent discussion that day. They also claimed that they reported on Golob’s suspicious business in BiH and denied any concealment of information but accused Gregorčič of “slandering” the creators of Odmevi on commercial television and that he was clearly unaware of the importance of his position.
Gregorčič was accused of inadmissible pressure on their work, but they did not respond to visible pressure on their colleagues
“The creators understand the unfounded public accusations of a man who occupies such an important position in a public institution as an inadmissible pressure on our work. We expect different and more respectful communication from the representatives of our public institution,” the team of Odmevi wrote in the letter, signed by Aleš Malerič, Vesna Pfeiffer, Aleksandra Saksida, Tanja Starič, Rosvita Pesek and Igor E. Bergant. All those who are accusing of inadmissible pressure did not respond or complain when pressure was put on Igor Pirkovič, Jadranka Rebernik in front of the eyes of the general public, because they are “the other” and “one minority”, as Marcel Štefančič Jr. called them. There was no reaction even when they attacked their colleague Vida Petrovčič, who was ready to take over the management of the Studio City show, after the RTV management did not extend the contract of the host of the show Marcel Štefančič due to known public threats and hate speech. Apparently even her child was threatened.
Jadranka Rebernik confirmed Gregorčič’s statements
Later, on April 30th, Jadranka Rebernik responded to the letter from the Odmevi team, which fully confirmed Gregorčič’s statements and caught the Odmevi team lying. In the letter, she initially accused them of solving problems “outside the editorial office”, which they accused Gregorčič of, and questioned their journalistic professionalism in terms of verifying information.
The Odmevi team was caught lying
Rebernik further explained that journalist Gašper Petovar had prepared a paper on Friday, April 15th, which was planned for most of that day, and due to certain legal deadlines for answers and data collection, it was being prepared from the end of March. “I read the text of the article myself, the editor of the internal political editorial board Tadeja Anžlovar was also acquainted with the article, who also sent me a message that the article on personal income tax will be published in Odmevi TODAY. Today is Friday, April 15th, 2022,” Rebernik wrote in the letter, thus clearly refuting all the claims of the Odmevi team, which claimed that Golob’s income tax return was not planned for that day. Rebernik wrote in the letter that she was not informed about the non-publication and did not find out the reason for such a decision by Starič and Malerič, despite the agreement of the editorial board. The fact that the article was prepared is also evident in Inews, where the history of the prepared articles is recorded, which was also published on the portal by Požareport.
Dr Peter Gregorčič later responded to a letter from the Odmevi team. In it, he informed them of the violation of professional journalistic ethics and demanded an apology for their completely unfounded accusations. According to many, these were just “an act of anger because someone dared to break the commitment to silence within RTV, which served as a way to achieve higher goals and manipulate the public – in this case censorship” or even out of helplessness when someone finally dared to step out of the background and talk about irregularities behind the scenes of the public media house, despite jeopardising the functioning of parallel mechanisms. Namely, they serve some journalists to achieve their own or political goals.
