Despite the disclosure by Slovenian Member of the European Parliament, Dr Milan Zver, about the visit of the former European Commission Vice-President, Věra Jourová, to Slovenia, who came with the intention of influencing the President of the Constitutional Court so that he would subsequently allow the implementation of the law by which the government took over the national media outlet, Radio-Television Slovenia (RTVS), the news did not make the front page of the leading national news portal, MMC. They even changed the title of the article.
After two years and seven months, point 3 of the memo entitled “What do we want from Accetto?” has finally been revealed, which the European Commission had concealed from the public up until Friday. “The European Court forced the Commission to disclose it. And now it is clear why Brussels was so afraid of its publication – the third point states that the Vice-President of the European Commission should ‘seek an opportunity to verify the views of the President of the Constitutional Court on the new law on RTV Slovenia’ — a law that was suspended at the time and under review by the Constitutional Court,” MEP Dr Milan Zver pointed out on Friday.
Since the disclosure of this document proves that the European Commission acted politically, that it tried to influence the judicial branch of a member state, and then delayed the disclosure of the truth for two years, one would reasonably expect the news to make the front page of the national media outlet’s main news portal. This did not happen, however, as the news was only published in the section about Slovenia.
When a media outlet publishes a story on the front page, it immediately becomes the focus of readers’ attention. By publishing this particular story in the section about Slovenia, it appears that they were trying to ensure that as few people as possible would read it. The reason for this may lie in the fact that the disclosure “confirmed long-standing fears that Jourová, in collaboration with her political ally Robert Golob, came to Slovenia with the aim of influencing the President of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia to enable the implementation of the law by which the government took over the national media outlet, Radio-Television Slovenia.”
They even changed the headline
Not only did the national media outlet publish the news in a less prominent place than they should have, but they also changed the headline a few hours after they first published it. It was originally titled “Zver: Commissioner Jourová came to Slovenia with the intention of influencing the president of the Constitutional Court.” They later changed the title of the article, deciding instead on: “Constitutional Court: Accetto and Jourova did not discuss any open cases of the Constitutional Court.”
Based on this approach, many would conclude that the “depoliticisation” of the national media outlet, which the Prime Minister has worked so hard to achieve, has been more than successful, meaning that news that casts the ruling party in a bad light is given as little exposure as possible, unless the issue is too high-profile to be ignored. If this had happened during the reign of a right-wing government, we can imagine from experience that the reporting on the matter would have been different, namely, it would have been much more sensational.
A. H.
