By: Nova24tv.si
The Ministry of Culture has halted two public calls through which the previous government intended to directly co‑finance journalists’ salaries and digital subscriptions at selected media outlets. These were measures presented as “support for quality journalism”, but in reality, they would have meant a crude intervention of the state into the media market – and in a way that would primarily benefit a specific circle of media.
The call for co‑financing journalists’ salaries (a total of 4 million euros for 2026 and 2027) was intended only for publishers of “national and regional general‑information” print and digital media. They would have co‑financed up to 3,000 euros per month of gross salary for new positions, but only for a limited number of jobs and only for precisely defined profiles. Free newspapers, municipal newsletters, party media, narrowly specialised publications, and websites of print, radio, or television programmes were explicitly excluded. The call for digital subscriptions was designed in a similarly selective way.
We discussed this with editor, publicist, and author Jože Biščak. His assessment of the original design is clear: “No government support (the state does not have its own money; it only has the money of net taxpayers) is neutral. When politics gives money, it is always a political act. Therefore, the calls for co‑financing journalists’ salaries and digital subscriptions are a classic example of state intervention wrapped in the cloak of public interest. When the state chooses which media will receive money for salaries, it does not support pluralism, it creates dependents. The market should punish or reward media through subscribers and advertisers, not bureaucrats with taxpayers’ money.”
Such an arrangement is not neutral, and it creates an unfair advantage
The state would use taxpayers’ money to directly subsidise labour costs and subscription models only for certain newsrooms. Those who successfully applied and met the bureaucratic criteria would gain a competitive advantage: cheaper hiring, greater staffing capacity, and state assistance in transitioning to digital subscriptions. The others – smaller, alternative, market‑oriented, or ideologically less “suitable” media – would be left without this support.
Biščak has no doubts about this: “Of course it creates an unfair advantage. If one newsroom receives up to 3,000 euros per month for an individual journalist from the taxpayers’ pocket, while another competes solely with its own revenue, this is market distortion in its purest form. I have always said: subsidies are very harmful, because competition becomes illusory, it becomes a mirage.” The consequence would be a distorted market where success does not depend on readers, quality, or business model, but on whether you fall into the circle that the state recognises as worthy of co‑financing. This is not support for pluralism. It is the creation of a privileged class of media that become dependent on budget funds and therefore more susceptible to political pressure.
Where is the line between legitimate support and privileging?
Biščak sees it very clearly: “The line is clear: legitimate support is limited to clearly defined public goods (e.g., archiving, educational content, libraries) with absolutely transparent, non‑discretionary criteria and a time limit. Put differently: there should be no state support for media at all. If a media outlet cannot survive on the market, it should fail. Someone else will replace it. The state should not choose winners; winners are chosen by the market. Once it starts financing the salaries of specific journalists, political motivation becomes almost inevitable.”
And he adds an even more radical point: “The state should not directly co‑finance journalists’ salaries at all, neither in private media nor in state‑owned media. Moreover, the state should not own media in the first place, which means it should sell RTV Slovenia, STA, and Siol.net!”
In the past, state media tenders were often distributed among established players. Biščak warns that the risk that this scheme would also become a tool for maintaining the status quo is enormous and already historically proven: “For decades, Slovenian media tenders have served as a tool for preserving the status quo and ideological homogeneity. Instead of pluralism, we get the maintenance of an ideological bubble at the taxpayers’ expense. Therefore, the only risk is for net taxpayers, who are forced, under threat of coercion, to pay for selected media.”
The Slovenian Journalists’ Union and the Slovenian Association of Journalists warned, after the calls were halted, about layoffs and newsroom overload. “Mostly this is pressure to preserve privileges, wrapped in concern for jobs. If a media outlet’s business model depends on state subsidies for salaries, then it is not competitive and should either disappear from the market or adapt. Layoffs in such cases are a normal market signal,” said our interlocutor, who sees this primarily as pressure to preserve privileges.
A media outlet must survive on the market by itself
Biščak has no doubts here either: “There is no better system than a free and open market. I am also against tax reliefs. I will say it again. Even though I feel sorry for every media outlet, it must survive on the market on its own. If it cannot convince viewers, listeners, or readers, let it die. Period. There is no debate here. Pluralism is not the result of bureaucratic tenders, but of competition in ideas and business models. Words like “pluralism”, “public interest”, and “independent journalism” are far from neutral or objective. This vocabulary has long been a left‑wing weapon in the cultural war.”
Halting the calls is primarily necessary austerity
Stopping these calls due to changed financial circumstances is therefore not an attack on journalism. In the broader context of the budget revision and the public‑finance deficit, Biščak assesses: “In the context of the public‑finance hole and the budget rebalance, halting the calls is primarily necessary austerity. And every public‑finance saving has a political context, because the government is by definition a political body. But this does not change the fact that such schemes should be abolished regardless of the current government. The state cannot rescue media with net taxpayers’ money. More than a reckoning, this is an opportunity for systemic change: fewer subsidies, more freedom. If this brings pain to some media outlets, that is the price for eliminating market distortions.” In this context, it is also important to mention that these calls were not even planned in the budget, as Peter Jančič, editor‑in‑chief of the Siol news portal, emphasised.
The real public interest in the media field is not that the state pays journalists’ salaries in certain newsrooms. It is that an open, competitive, and independent space exists where readers themselves decide what is worthy of their attention and money. Everything else is a path toward dependency and distortion.
