By: L.K.F
The Supervisory Board of RTV Slovenia approved amendments to the Articles of Association of the public service broadcaster RTV Slovenia. The main change relates to the division of the Information Programme so that the current editorial and production unit of the Information Programme of TV Slovenia will be transformed into two editorial and production units: the editorial and production unit of the Information Programme of the first programme of TV Slovenia, and the editorial and production unit of the Information Programme of the second programme of TV Slovenia. Opponents have political criticism.
As is known, the Programme Council of RTV Slovenia gave its consent to the amendments to the statute at the second extraordinary session of the council on May 9th.
As explained in the proposed amendment to the statute, the proposed division stems primarily from the importance of the Information Programme on TV Slovenia. The RTV Slovenia Act defines the informative programme and its contents as crucial in the realisation of the public mission of the institute.
“Therefore, it is right to enable the programme to be appropriately placed or positioned, i.e., by establishing an additional editorial board. It is not superfluous to add that the establishment of an additional editorial board of the news programme also entails greater responsibility of both employees and management of this programme in the preparation of programme content. The establishment of an additional editorial board of the news programme is also necessary for easier staffing and programme management, as the current arrangement is practically unmanageable due to the number of staff as well as the hours of the programme created,” the RTVS management wrote in the proposed changes.
When reviewing the number of employees by the responsible editorial boards of RTV Slovenia, the editorial board of the TV Slovenia Information Programme is in the first place (139 employees). The editorial board with the largest number of employees also has by far the largest volume of programmes created on TV Slovenia, and its importance and reach are certainly crucial for the public service broadcaster RTV Slovenia. For comparison: the editorial board of Programme Plus, which is 10 times smaller in terms of the number of employees, was also led by the editor-in-chief until last year. “At the same time, of course, we cannot overlook the importance and reach of the Information Programme compared to the Plus Programme, as well as the consequent easier control of content, as long as there are fewer broadcasts and the number of employees,” added the drafters of the statute’s changes.
Among the responsible editorial offices on TV Slovenia, the Informative Programme creates the most hours of the programme (2700). The comparison shows that the Informative Programme creates up to five times more than the smallest editorial boards on Television Slovenia (entertainment programme – 479 hours and Plus programme – 600 hours). “We reiterate the importance of the informative programme for the public institution, because with such a large amount of created programme, the question of whether such a large scope can enable quality control and supervision over all contents of the informative programme, for which the editor-in-chief is responsible by law. The RTV Slovenia Act is clear, the editor-in-chief is responsible for programming, production, personnel, and finances for the broadcasting of all content in an individual programme. Let us remind that the current programme-production plan also introduces new broadcasts, including Panorama, which requires additional engagement of the editor-in-chief of the Information Programme,” said the management.
RTVS director Andrej Grah Whatmough concluded: “We are convinced that the statutory changes will lead to a more efficient work process and better conditions for creating quality programme content. We will strive to present the changes to employees and introduce them gradually.”
Opponents have complained that the 1st and 2nd news programmes will be politically defined, or that right-wing journalists and editors will “kidnap” the 2nd programme for themselves.
As Mitja Iršič, a journalist and consultant at the Ministry of Culture, commented on the change, this proposal is the result of Slovenia’s situation, where the ideological orientation of RTV journalists is mostly left-wing, but we also need views from the other (conservative) side.
“On the other hand, we have already adopted the Rules on Professional Standards of RTV Journalists in 2000, which clearly states that to achieve balance and impartiality, RTV Slovenia must ensure the widest possible expression of different views and opinions. RTV Slovenia’s programmes must be politically neutral, which means that journalists and editors must not give priority to certain political and ideological positions,” Iršič explains. He added: “Perhaps it would be better to gather the existing journalists of the news programme first and explain to them a little better what political neutrality means in practice (e.g., basic postulate to ensure at least two different political opinions, which journalists systematically violate). We can no longer say that the political bias we all observe is just anecdotal evidence. That RTV Slovenia is measurably empirically biased was also shown by the research of political pluralism of web portals conducted by the Faculty of Media in Ljubljana – in this research the rtvslo.si portal performed even worse than some private media that do not hide their left political affinity. In my opinion, pluralism and, above all, media neutrality can be achieved through greater professionalism and commitment to journalistic standards, without the need to establish additional editorial boards.”