By: Sara Kovač (Nova24tv.si)
Sunday’s interview of Ljubljana city councillor Aleš Primc in the programme Interview with host Jože Možina seems to have bothered those who imagine that the public service, whose operation, regardless of political beliefs and other circumstances, all Slovenian households are forced to finance, will unilaterally only blew the horn of the ruling authority. Critical thought is suddenly not desirable, even though its importance was trumpeted on the left even before the elections. Today, we are witnessing such attacks on journalism as we have never witnessed before, and they are even coming from the Office of the President of the Republic of Slovenia.
If during the time of the previous government, from the so-called KUL members, for internal political purposes, we could listen to the stories about how pressure was supposedly exerted on freedom of speech and journalism, although in reality we were constantly listening to criticism of the authorities, we are now actually witnessing a real situation where some in power or close to power feel sent to dictate what and how matters will be reported, and this time, of course, this does not seem problematic in the least. Undoubtedly, Miriam Možgan, advisor to the President of the Republic for foreign affairs, is among the latter, who seems to imagine that she will be editing the public RTVS from the office of the President Nataša Pirc Musar.
Miriam Možgan, despite the fact that she is a long-time diplomat, indulged herself with the following note: “The milestone of the smallness of RTVS editors was the transmission of the oath of the President of the Republic of Slovenia Nataša Pirc Musar, which was accompanied by malicious notes that the President of the Republic was being accused. It was discrediting of the first female president. Another monstrous drop in standards on TV is Jože Možina’s evening guest, Aleš Primc.” Mitja Iršič, a political analyst, responded to the record, and in connection with this response, he pointed out that we have never had such political attacks on journalism and RTV. “The PRS office is suggesting that the national TV should cover up that the president was accused, and they are putting pressure on the journalists regarding which guest they can invite to the studio,” he pointed out, adding that Brussels will be informed about this.
Political attack on public RTVS
The director of Television Slovenia, Uroš Urbanija, pointed out in relation to Možgan’s response that she had clearly missed the era, as the party top 40 years ago determined interviews on RTV Slovenia. “Today, society is still a bit more democratic, and the step forward towards democracy and plurality is made by journalists who are not afraid of political pressure from Erjavec,” he emphasised. The presenter of the RTVS programme Jože Možina reacted particularly critically to such an absence from the office of the President of the Republic, who asked himself if we are back in fascism/communism. He wrote the following: “Monstrous – what a political attack on public broadcaster RTVS is being carried out by this single-minded woman from Nataša Pirc Musar’s office. Are we in fascism/communism again, so that the party will measure who is allowed in the Interview show? Plurality? Shame on you! It is ESSENTIAL to watch the extremely informative Aleš Primc by clicking on: https://365.rtvslo.si/arhiv/intervju/174945793”.
As we can see, the situation in our country is truly alarming: the government imagines that it will be the one to judge what is hate speech and what is not, and on top of that, it imagines that it will not be reported on what the rulers do not like by choosing who can appear in front of the cameras of the public media. Although these are pure totalitarian approaches, civil society and mainstream media journalists do not stand up and report anxiously to Brussels because they are connected to an authority that feels it is the only one sent to run our country. But despite all the effort, we can see that Slovenia has begun to wake up. We have never seen protests like we have witnessed recently. The authorities are only concerned with giving timelines, goals, and selling PR stories with Tina Gaber and Nika Kovač, which are used to distract attention from the serious problems we are witnessing. When people are struggling to live due to the complete paralysis of the government and the government announces additional taxes, it is logical that people will not just look on blindly and nod. Slovenia is not North Korea yet.