SLOVAKIA: Government-Media War Escalates

By Zoltán Dujisin Reprint | | Print |

Zoltán Dujisin

PRAGUE, Jan 17 2008 (IPS) - In the midst of a war between government and the media, a new and controversial press bill will force media outlets to publish anyone&#39s reactions to articles considered offensive.

The governing coalition says the law, which will complement the existing right to correction with the right to reply, will make the media more professional and trustworthy, but publishers consider the bill unbalanced and warn it could be misused.

"It is slightly ideological, aimed against journalists, and it seems that it is intended to punish the media," Alexej Fulmek, deputy chairman of the Association of Publishers of the Periodical Press told the press.

Slovak Prime Minister and chairman of the Social Democratic Party Smer (Direction) Robert Fico has waged a war on the media since he was elected, accusing it of becoming a political opposition to his cabinet rather than providing impartial information.

Some have speculated Fico&#39s war with the media is part of a populist tactic to increase his already impressive approval ratings, but opinion polls suggest the majority of the public disagrees with the prime minister&#39s assessment of the media.

Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic on the other hand agrees. Journalists "find nothing good about anything, they are only looking for what is bad," he told Slovak Radio recently.

The law envisages that responses will be published on the same page as the contested article. Publishers fear their front pages will be flooded with politicians&#39 replies, or used by them as "free advertisement".

"There is no precedent for this anywhere in the world," Lukas Fila, deputy editor in chief for the daily Sme told IPS. "The way the law was proposed means newspapers will change into basically a place for politicians to present their views without any confrontation."

There are also concerns that the law&#39s substantial fines against public bad-mouthing could intimidate journalists from doing their job. Critics have even suggested that the government&#39s initiative is contrary to European legal standards and aimed at silencing the media or orient it towards self-censorship.

"It would be too much to say that this is part of a systematic effort to undermine the media; it might be just a clumsy effort to update the legislation governing it, but since this happened in the context of very tense relations between the government and the media there is a chance it will be abused," Fila told IPS.

Fila&#39s centre-right daily Sme has been the prime victim of Fico&#39s media war, with the prime minister putting a stop to any information flows to the daily. Fico, who does not have a media advisor, also keeps refusing interview requests from the mostly private media that criticises him, though the PM&#39s statements and actions are everywhere to be found in Slovak newspapers.

In various commentaries in the press, journalists have said it is their job to keep a government under constant scrutiny.

Government complains against the media are not unheard of in this country of five – all prime ministers have vociferously protested a supposed media bias against them.

"Governments in general don&#39t have good relations with the media here; there is nothing life threatening going on but generally there is tension," Fila explains.

The last year saw the departure of some 20 journalists from the Slovak public television (STV) in protest against alleged political pressure.

The former director of STV Radim Hreha, reportedly a governmental appointee, was finally dismissed Dec. 12 after months of friction with his staff. Hreha admitted being subject to political pressure but said he was able to withstand it.

Supporters of the government claim the STV has always been subject to government pressure and Hreha himself has implied that the departing journalists are carrying out a politically motivated "campaign-like action".

A commission of media experts set up following a request by the Slovak Television Council concluded that the interventions on the television&#39s news desk were not politically motivated. The commission said that the editors&#39 complaints rather reflected problems of management, professionalism and bad communication.

But many outgoing editors insist they were forced to amend reports critical of the government and to cover issues promoting it, while others simply cite disagreements with the news desk management.

In the midst of debates on the role of media, a Reporters Without Borders report ranking Slovakia third in the world&#39s media freedom scale was received with surprise. The organisation was criticised for its choice of people filling up the questionnaire on which it bases its conclusions.

On the other hand the Vienna-based South East Europe Media Organisation said it was "extremely concerned" about Fico&#39s verbal attacks against Slovak media.

Fico was also warned by the Party of European Socialists, who have suspended Smer&#39s membership due to its alliance with extreme-right forces, that its return to the family of European socialists was being jeopardized by the prime minister&#39s war with the media.

"Fico must know that, in a democracy, no politician has ever won against them. But he also knows that he would seek their favour in vain – leftist media are practically nonexistent in Slovakia," leading Czech liberal weekly Respekt wrote last summer.

After being repeatedly questioned on a case of cronyism involving one of his ministers, Fico accused the media of corruption, claiming that 11 Slovak journalists had accepted money and a skiing trip to the Alps from a pension management company in exchange for articles.

The Czech weekly used this episode to issue a warning to Slovak press: "Journalists&#39 corruption poses as big a threat to democracy as politicians&#39 corruption. Most Slovak media passed over the affair with 11 participants in a skiing trip to the Alps with unbearable lightness."

Fila disagrees with this verdict. "Enough attention was paid to this issue, citizens know about the affair and that is thanks to the media who played their role. It is wrong for a journalist to go for a skiing trip paid by a private company but there was no proof of corruption as such," he told IPS.