Another day, another plan by Robert Fico’s Slovak government to undermine free societies. This time their target is the public service broadcaster “Radio and Television of Slovakia (RTVS)”.
The populist prime minister wants to turn it into a state-controlled institution and give the government much greater authority over its editorial content, especially news.
However, Fico’s media strategy is much broader than this: he has a public list of media outlets, to which he has made it clear that his party officials, members of parliament and the government will not speak to them.
The government takes inspiration from its southern neighbor, Hungary, where Viktor Orban has controlled public media for years and, through friendly oligarchs, also controls most private media.
It is worth noting that, in 2006, when Orbán’s popularity and influence were rising, there were street riots in Budapest, during which a mob broke into a public TV broadcaster, causing the broadcast to stop. The 2006 political crisis and protests against “lying” socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány paved the way for Orbán’s electoral victory in 2010.
Tensions over public radio and television are nothing new to Slovak society and the latest proposal from junior nationalist coalition partner, the Slovak National Party, is almost a reminder of the country’s repressive past.
Perhaps the darkest moment came in the 1990s, during the reign of authoritarian Prime Minister Vladimir Mekiyaar. At the time, television was their main propaganda medium and news broadcasts were outstanding in their allegiance to the state party.
“This time it is different than in previous crises, because it gives control to the government over who will lead the broadcaster – who will become the director,” Miroslav Frindt, a news anchor at our public TV broadcaster, told me. He has worked at the institution since 1998. This is when Meciar’s government fell.
“According to the proposed law, political nominees from the two government ministries will dominate the new council which must select the director. The same political dominance will be true for the newly created Content Council for Public Media,” says Frindt.
“The workplace environment is tough,” he said. “Employees are demoralized without any perspective, because no one knows what will happen and whether they will continue to work there if the new conditions are passed.”
However, some relief came when the government decided to put on hold the process of finalizing the law. The public broadcaster – RTVS – became a hot topic during the final stages of the recent presidential campaign, with there even being calls for a strike at RTVS during a rally in support of former diplomat and anti-Feco candidate Ivan Korcok.
At the end of his rally, which included 10,000 supporters, Korkoc carried a Slovak flag to the iconic inverted pyramid of the Slovak Radio studios.
Peter Pellegrini, a close ally of Robert Fico, ultimately won the presidential election with 53.1% of the vote. Even with the results so close – and which clearly indicates Slovakia’s political polarization – Fico and his allies continue to attack RTVS.
“I don’t think there has ever been a moment in the history of public service media in Slovakia where we could see such solidarity among both staff and the public,” says Frindt.
Both RTVS employees and the public are outraged by this government campaign to crush our public broadcaster. They have a fight on their hands.
Branislav Ondrasik reports for the Slovak daily SME