On Wednesday, we saw one of the most momentous days so far unfold, at least as far as the Golob government is concerned. The latter appointed a new director of the Government Communication Office, which has been headed by the notorious Dragan Barbutovski since the current government took office – the latter is mostly known for his quite unfortunate communication on Twitter, where he has serially blocked a whole bunch of people – much like the current Minister for Digital Transformation, Emilija Stojmenova Duh.
As the government announced on Wednesday, Petra Bezjak Cirman, who is an employee representative on the Programme Council of the national media outlet Radio-Television Slovenia, has become the new Director of the Government Communication Office. She is the wife of the notorious editor of the “Necenzurirano.si” (“Uncensored”) web portal, Primož Cirman. The information that the ”Uncensored couple” was taking over the key information flows in the country came to light almost immediately after it was announced that another of the creators from the same web portal, Vesna Vuković, was leaving to take up the post of spokeswoman for the Freedom Movement party (Gibanje Svoboda), while last week it became known that the third member of the infamous trio, Tomaž Modic, would become an assistant at the National Assembly’s Commission of Inquiry, which will deal with right-wing media and their allegedly suspicious links to politics and (foreign) capital. As is well known, the commission will be headed by former journalist-turned-member of the Freedom Movement party, Mojca Pašek Šetinc.
The incestuous personnel carousel
But this is not the end of the personnel carousel between the government and the media, as rumours have subsequently circulated, confirmed by the Prime Minister himself, Robert Golob, that Primož Cirman is likely to take over the management of the Siol.net web portal as early as this autumn. This will lead to a political takeover of the portal, but even before that, a general meeting of the Telekom Slovenije has to happen, where a new Supervisory Board will almost certainly be appointed, and then a new Management Board as well. This will also affect the replacement of the management of the TS Media company, which manages the Siol web portal, which is currently still managed by the editor Peter Jančič. The general meeting was already announced at the beginning of the summer, and Jančič has already commented on the announcement, writing: “Did the head of the government publicly announce the early dismissal of the editor-in-chief a year before the end of his term of office, due to political reasons, in order to put his supporter in office before the elections? This seems to be a new practice of political influence on the media.”
In any case, it seems that the notorious Borut Jamnik will strengthen his influence on Telekom’s management bodies.
In recent years, it was Borut Jamnik who was the key godfather of the above-mentioned “Uncensored” trio. This is especially true of Vuković, who gained her first professional experience at the Dnevnik newspaper (in tandem with Suzana Rankov), and then, together with Modic and Cirman, she also worked at Siol for a while and later moved to the Uncensored web portal, but she was in fact on Robert Golob’s payroll at the time – at least since 2018, as the journalist, Bojan Požar, reported – even when he was still running the state-owned Gen-I energy company. The latter also drew attention to the media spin spread by the regime’s media, which claim that the now-sacked acting Director of the Government Communication Office, Dragan Barbutovski, left this post because he wanted to work as an official, according to the rules of communication, while the government was demanding more political engagement from him. Well, Barbutovski got a new job in Golob’s cabinet, where he was supposed to be in charge of international communication, and some evil rumours have also been spread about how, given his Twitter practice, he could isolate Slovenia internationally, in terms of communication.
Former Minister of the Interior, Aleš Hojs, has also commented on the situation on Twitter, writing: “Instead of Barbutovski, we are now getting Cirman. The predictions that the leftists have to pay their dues to the media that supported them are coming true. Primož will be able to continue to slander, spit and lie about the politically incorrect, and Petra will make sure that this will also be part of the government’s messages. In the evenings, they will reflect on their work together.”
The ”Uncensored” trio has always been Golob’s personal guard
Well, the “Uncensored” web portal was apparently an ad hoc project, set up to be financed by the notorious garbage tycoon Martin Odlazek, but only until the elections, regardless of their outcome. This means that after the elections, the fully indebted web portal is apparently headed to the media dump, as it will no longer be needed, at least from the point when Cirman becomes the editor of the Siol web portal. And to make the media takeover scene even more bizarre, even Golob himself described Cirman as “the best investigative journalist in the country.” Which is unbelievably bizarre, to say the least – if the previous Prime Minister Janez Janša had, say, labelled Bojan Požar the best investigative journalist in the country, there would have been a general strike within a few hours. But as it is, the journalistic community, which is in one way or another tied to the Golob government and its parties, just giggles indulgently at the quite understandable eye-rolling coming from the oppositions’ ranks. Of course, the Slovene Association of Journalists is also silent, but it is there for every unimportant thing when it comes to minor incidents related to those who are not “theirs.” Which is to be expected, since Cirman is a member of the board of the association in question.
Obviously, we can agree with Požar’s thesis that the journalists of the Uncensored web portal are not only the media wing of Golob’s Freedom Movement party and even the government he leads, but also his personal guard. After all, even before the start of the official pre-election campaign, Primož Cirman was conducting public debates in which the main hero was always – Golob. According to Požareport, Modic was nominated to serve on the parliamentary commission of inquiry by Vesna Vuković, “who, as we know, has secretly been working for Golob for a long time (as a fox leaves tracks in the snow), and it is Vuković and Modic who are said to have been the authors of the text of the decision to set up the commission.”
In any case, even the notorious Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin could learn a lot from this kind of incestuous linking between media and politicians. Now it is just a question of who will cover the debts (including the tax ones) of the Uncensored web portal and clear its blocked accounts. This is also why the government was in such a hurry to replace the Director of the Financial Administration of the Republic of Slovenia.
With this, it should also be pointed out that back in 2020, they tried to sell TS Media, following the example of Planet TV, which is now owned by Hungarians. But apparently, the Siol web portal remains part of the “national interest.” It looks like 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.
Tomaž S. Medved, Demokracija
