journalists | SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

The Siege Of RTVSLO

It may, of course, be pure coincidence, but fact of the matter is that only days into Russian aggression against Ukraine, the government of Slovenian PM Janez Janša began a siege and ultimately an assault on RTV Slovenija (RTVSLO), the country’s public broadcaster.

The building of TV arm of RTV Slovenija (RTVSLO), the nation's public broadcaster. — *RTVSLO headquarters (source)*

Normally, putting the war in Ukraine and the shit Janša is getting away with side by side would be gratuitous at best. But it is not only that there is a temporal overlap between the two. The Glorious Leader is directly using RTVSLO coverage of war in Ukraine to instigate the latest and most brutal round of undermining and destruction of the public outlet.

Depeche Mode

It took Janša 3.0 government less than a month to score its first international embarrassment. Which is quite a feat, considering that the country is in the middle of containing the Covid-19 epidemic. The crux of the matter is a “dispatch” sent by the Slovenian foreign ministry in which they rebuke an alert raised on the Council of Europe media freedom platform.

To cut a long story short, in a pair of tweets PM Janša accused the public broadcaster RTVSLO of running false stories, being overpaid and overstaffed. Various domestic and international journalism organisations raised a stink with the CoE and this required an official government response. The document turned out to be such a fucking train wreck that everyone – including the foreign ministry – started running away from it, pronto.