TV show host Mojca Mavec has recently confirmed once again that RTV Slovenia, our national public broadcasting organisation, is unable to change. On St. George’s day, Mavec decided to go off script and politicise. Unfortunately, it turns out that the public television, which we all pay for, is incapable of having even one show on its programme, where they would not be bashing the current government. Which, as we have said countless times before, is completely inappropriate during the time of the epidemic. Everyone should be talking about the importance of respecting the measures, but instead, we keep hearing about the frustrations of the left-wing opposition and its regime media outlets.
It seems incomprehensible that there is practically not a single show that is being broadcast on RTV Slovenia, which would not include some form of criticism of the current government or, even better, Prime Minister Janez Janša. You could say that this is starting to seem a bit boring, but unfortunately, that is not the only or the biggest problem here. The fact is that this is a public television that we all pay for, and that is why we all deserve a more decent programme. Or at least a relevant programme. On foreign television channels, for example, we can see calls for responsible behaviour during the epidemic, which obviously does not happen here, because this, according to the logic of the RTV, would mean that they support the current government, which they – to put it mildly – do not. Yes, it is true that the journalists are supposed to point out the irregularities in the work of the government and somehow keep all branches of the government “in check.” However, the unnecessary morning monologues about this by Mojca Mavec certainly do not fall in this category.
“And it is much better to hear the birds tweeting outside than to see that our government is tweeting on Twitter. Have you noticed – tweet, tweet, and here are some new measures again, another thirty days of the epidemic,” she said on the morning show while talking about Saint George’s day (the 12th of March), which is believed to be the day when the birds are getting married, according to old Slovenian traditions. She explained that the poet Oton Župančič also described this day in his poem Duma. However, Župančič was not really focusing on Saint George’s day, but rather on the problem of emigration of Slovenians from Bela Krajina, who were leaving because their homeland did not offer them enough opportunities to develop and prosper. We could therefore say that Mavec was hinting at the tragic situation in Slovenia, but in all probability, her imagination did not reach that far. Namely, users of social networks quickly reminded everyone of Mavec’s plagiarism, which was the reason for her losing several jobs and job prospects, but RTV Slovenia does not seem to mind the plagiarism at all. At the time, she did apologise for it – which is almost hard to believe – allegedly, with a short post that also contained “borrowed” quotes.
Birds of a feather flock together
Anyhow, the point is that in an epidemic, it would be much more appropriate to constantly repeat what all of us can do to help limit the spread of the infection, if you really have to constantly repeat something. This would certainly bring better results than the mockery – saying that the current government is tweeting and thus creating additional measures and prolonging the epidemic. If the TV show host was trying to find a reference to birds, she could have mentioned that even the birds in the trees are talking about how it is important to respect the measures, but some people still do not get it. We are really sorry that we have to keep writing about this; however, the left-wing opposition, in tandem with the majority media, which keeps singing the same corrupt tune over and over again, really leaves us no choice.
Sara Kovač
