MEDIA: Slovakia Tightens the Gag

• by Pavol Stracansky (bratislava)
• Friday, January 22, 2010
• Inter Press Service

Media monitoring groups say that public broadcaster STV has abandoned unbiased reporting on the coalition government and is muzzling investigative journalism and any reporting that could be seen as critical of the government.

Rastislav Kuzel, a media analyst for the MEMO98, an NGO in Bratislava, told IPS: 'Recent events at STV are very alarming, especially in light of the fact that there are going to be elections this summer. We have already had the first signs that the government is using STV as a propaganda tool.'

The warnings come just days after a reporter at the station was laid off following controversy over a documentary on the use of EU funds at one of a number of special social welfare institutes projects brought in by labour minister Viera Tomanova. Some of the projects have subsequently been linked to governing party MPs and their friends.

The documentary was pulled hours before it was due to air in October last year on the orders of the head of STV, Stefan Niznansky.

Niznansky, who before he took up his post was a media advisor to the current labour minister, claimed the broadcast was stopped because the reporters who made the programme had not followed internal editing procedures. He also said the journalist involved would be disciplined.

But it then emerged that the documentary had been approved by editorial chiefs for broadcast days before Niznansky's decision.

The move was condemned by media watchdogs and journalists' associations in the country, and there was speculation that the station had been put under pressure to stop the broadcast. The misuse of the funds was earlier this month proved in a Brussels audit.

The station is also facing accusations of political bias over an episode of its flagship Sunday lunchtime political debate programme earlier this month.

The show usually features a single government and opposition representative debating current political and social themes. But in a broadcast on the first Sunday of this year the only guests were Prime Minister Robert Fico, Speaker of Parliament Pavol Paska - a senior member of Fico's Smer party - and President Ivan Gasparovic, who, despite holding a politically neutral post, said last year that he was 'practically a member' of Smer.

Opposition politicians said the show had been nothing but government propaganda.

'This, and the sacking of the reporter over the documentary show there is political pressure on the station by the ruling coalition,' Kuzel told IPS.

STV officials have denied any political links to either the reporter's dismissal or the broadcast of its debate. It has also repeatedly dismissed accusations of political influence at the station.

But since the government came to power in 2006, questions have been raised over government politicians' influence. Journalists at the station have claimed that government figures have contacted them to tell them how to present their news coverage.

In October 2006 then head of news at the station Roland Kyska said Prime Minister Fico had called him to tell him what he expected from coverage of a state visit he was about to undertake. Kyska told Slovak media at the time that the government expected STV to be 'servile' to it.

STV staff also confirmed that the prime minister's spokeswoman and culture minister Marek Madaric had called on other occasions to discuss news presentation.

In 2007, 11 STV news staff resigned claiming that their work was being censored and that there was political influence on broadcast decisions.

Critics say that STV director Niznansky is ensuring the government is presented in the best possible light by the station.

Andrej Skolkay, media analyst and head of the School of Media and Communication in Bratislava, told IPS: 'He knows exactly how to present things so that it looks good for the government. STV avoids sensitive issues and turns out hidden propaganda.'

And they warn that if the government has control over STV's news output it will be able to use it to manipulate voters at elections planned this June.

'It has the best geographical coverage of any TV station in Slovakia and in some parts of the country people, potential voters, cannot receive any other stations, and will rely on STV as their only TV source of political news,' said Kuzel.

Similar concerns over government restriction on reporting have also been voiced in the print media industry.

Relations between the government and print media are at their lowest point since the autocratic regime of Vladimir Meciar in the 1990s which led Slovakia into international isolation at the time and was condemned by rights groups across the world for, among others, its manipulation of public media.

Government politicians have openly insulted journalists since coming to power. Fico has publicly dismissed them as corrupt, stupid, liars, idiots and prostitutes. In December last year he also compared the publishers of print media to mafia and claimed they had secretly met to discuss ways of discrediting him. One publisher has now brought legal action against him over the comments.

But Fico and other senior government politicians have also launched a string of libel actions against print media, many of them successful. Fico himself won more than 100,000 euros in compensation from newspapers and magazines last year alone.

Some critics have argued the compensation awards in some cases have been completely unjustified - the average yearly wage in the country is less than 10,000 euros - and are an attempt to financially weaken media critical of the government.

'They are already winning large sums in libel cases in civil courts regularly, and this is a threat to newspapers,' Kuzel told IPS.

Publishers are equally fearful of recent legislation some journalists have claimed is a thinly-veiled attempt to muzzle critical reporting of government politicians.

A new media law passed in April 2008 brought in a 'right to reply' under which print media would be forced to publish the reaction of any person who felt that a published article had harmed their reputation, even if the facts contained in the article were true.

The legislation stipulated that the reaction would have to be published in the same place in the newspaper or magazine. If the publication refused to do so it faced fines of up to 5,000 euros.

Publishers and editors in Slovakia fiercely protested the passage of the law, and international journalism organisations such as Reporters Without Borders as well as institutions such as the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) condemned it as an attack on editorial freedom.

But the politicians who drafted the law claim that it was not brought in to restrict the free press but instead to protect ordinary people against false accusations. Fico said when it was passed that it was not designed to be used by politicians, and he would never use it.

But within weeks of it coming into effect the coalition government HZDS party tried to use it, and just last year Fico himself used it over an article in a magazine about his son's schooling.

Media analysts say that politicians' claims about the purpose of the legislation have been proved false and that it is being used against critical press.

'The law was created amid a background of a very hostile relationship the Prime Minister had with the press. The right of reply is very restrictive for newspapers and a potential threat.

'It has been shown that it was not, as claimed, created for ordinary people but for politicians. It is a tool which creates extra leverage for them against the newspapers,' Kuzel told IPS.

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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