Politico has repeatedly proven to be a biased media outlet, which, when trying to write about local affairs of individual countries, always takes the position of the extreme leftists from these countries, which suggests that it has and also seeks such contacts. We are publishing the Ministry of Culture’s response below.
In its latest article on Slovenia, Politico is promoting the mantra of the far left, claiming that Janez Janša is persecuting and intimidating the media outlets which he does not like. The Ministry of Culture responded to Politico’s agit prop with some precisely argued statements.
The Ministry of Culture wrote that Politico’s article was extremely biased and stated all the facts that one needs to know to understand the government-media relationship:
- The Slovenian media are mostly owned by left-wing tycoons.
- The Government of the Republic of Slovenia awarded 2.6 million euros through a public tender for the media (most of it to the left-wing media) and tens of millions more from the intervention funds for mitigating the consequences of the coronavirus disease.
- The Prime Minister was critical of the media, which reported in a way that caused people to start underestimating the coronavirus disease, which therefore meant that they did not respect the epidemiological security measures, but he never interfered with the editorial independence of the media.
- If the journalists are really “afraid” to report on the Hungarian investments in Slovenia, they certainly do not show this, as they often report on this topic (even with deliberate exaggerations and by hiding the fact that all Hungarian privately owned media do not even represent five percent of the entire media landscape).
- An analysis of media pluralism, prepared by the Faculty of Media, shows that the mainstream media have a strong anti-government, oppositional media stance, where the left-wing views prevail over right-wing ones, which is in direct contrast to the anonymous reports claiming that journalists are forced into self-censorship.
- RTV Slovenia will not be left without funds. A small share of the mandatory contribution for RTV, which will be transferred to other media, will be replaced by more liberal legislation in the field of advertising. The Government of the Republic of Slovenia has already paid 2.1 million euros in additional funds to RTV in order to mitigate the consequences of the epidemic.
Politico is proud of the fact that they spoke to a “dozen” Slovenian journalists. Apparently, they were all left-wing.
Aleš Ernecl
