By: Tomaž S. Medved
Yesterday was perhaps one of the most turning days ever, at least as far as Golob’s government is concerned. The latter appointed a new director, actually the director of Ukom, which was led from the beginning of the current government until now by the infamous Dragan Barbutovski, known for his unsuccessful communication on Twitter, on which he serially blocked a whole bunch of people, similar to the Minister for Digital Transformation Emilija Stoimenova Duh.
As the government announced yesterday, Petra Bezjak Cirman has become the new director of Ukom, who is the employee representative in the programming council of RTV Slovenia. She is the wife of the notorious editor of the Necenzurirano portal Primož Cirman. The information that the “uncensored link” is taking over key flows of information in the country came to light almost immediately after it was announced that another of the creators of the same portal, Vesna Vuković, was leaving for the post of spokesperson of Gibanje Svoboda party, while it already became clear last week that the third of the aforementioned trio, Tomaž Modic, will be an expert associate of the investigative commission, which will deal with the right-wing media and their allegedly suspicious connections with politics and (foreign) capital. As is known, the committee will be headed by former journalist and now an MP Mojca Pašek Šetinc.
Incest personnel carousel
But this did not end the personnel carousel between the government and the media, as rumours also circulated, confirmed by Prime Minister Robert Golob himself, namely that Primož Cirman will probably take over the management of the Siol.net portal this fall. This will lead to the political takeover of the aforementioned portal, but even earlier the general assembly of Telekom Slovenije may take place, where the appointment of a new supervisory board and then the management will almost certainly take place. As a result, this will also affect the change of the management of TS Media, which manages the Siol portal, the latter is now edited by Peter Jančič. The general meeting was announced already at the beginning of the summer, and it seems that the notorious Borut Jamnik will strengthen his influence in Telekom’s management bodies.
Let us remind you: it was Borut Jamnik who was the key godfather of the aforementioned “uncensored” trio in recent years. This is especially true for Vuković, who gained her first experience at Dnevnik (in tandem with Suzana Rankov), then together with Modic and Cirman for some time at Siol and then at the Censurirano portal, but she was actually on the payroll of Robert Golob all the time back in the days when he was leading Gen-I. At least since 2018, as Bojan Požar writes. The latter also pointed out the media spin spread by the regime’s media, saying that the sawed-off acting director of Ukom, Dragan Barbutovski, resigned because he wanted to work as an official, according to the rules of communication, while the government allegedly demanded more political engagement from him. Well, Barbutovski got a new job right in Golob’s cabinet, where he is supposed to take care of international communication, and evil tongues claim that, based on his practice on Twitter, he could isolate Slovenia internationally in terms of communication.
“Necenzurirano portal” has always been Golob’s personal guard
Well, the Necenzurirano portal was apparently an ad hoc created project, which the notorious garbage tycoon Martin Odlazek supposedly financed only until the elections, regardless of the outcome. This means that after the elections, the completely in debt portal is clearly going to the media dump, because it will obviously no longer be needed, at least not from the time when Cirman will edit Siol. And to make the media takeover scene even more bizarre, Golob himself called Cirman “the best investigative journalist in the country”. Which is incredibly bizarre to say the least – if the previous Prime Minister Janez Janša had called Bojan Požar the best investigative journalist in the country, there would have been a general strike within a few hours. However, the journalistic scum, which is one way, or another tied to Golob’s government and its parties, just giggles indulgently at the completely understandable rolling of the eyes that comes from the opposition ranks. Of course, the Association of Journalists of Slovenia is also silent, which otherwise advertises itself for every fig when it comes to some small incidents related to “not-ours”. Normal, since Cirman is a member of the board of directors of the aforementioned association.
Obviously, we can agree with Požar’s thesis that the journalists of the Necenzurirano portal are not only the media wing of his party, Gibanje Svoboda, and the government he leads, but also his personal journalistic praetorian guard. After all, even before the start of the official pre-election campaign, Primož Cirman led public tribunes in which Golob appeared as the main hero. As Požareport reports, Vesna Vuković proposed Modic for a job in the parliamentary investigative committee, “who, as we know, has actually been secretly working for Golob for a long time (a fox leaves tracks in the snow), and it is Vuković and Modic who are said to be the author of the text of the resolution on establishing these commissions”.
Either way, even Russia’s notorious autocrat Vladimir Putin could learn a lot from this kind of incestuous connection between the media and politicians. Now the only question is who will cover the debts (including taxes) of the Necenzurirano portal and clean up its blocked accounts. This is also why the government was in such a hurry to replace the director of FURS…
At the same time, it is also worth remembering that already in 2020, they tried to sell TS Media following the example of Planet TV, which is now owned by Hungarians. But apparently the Siol portal remains part of the “national interest” – we wrote about the announced changes at Telekom HERE. So, we are in for a hot political autumn and, of course, attempts to silence all media that are not part of the government’s propaganda apparatus.