Članek (27. 1. 2008) v Missourian z nekaj mnenji o medijski svobodi v Vzhodni Evropi. Celoten članek, spodaj odlomek o Sloveniji:

An interesting occurrence since the end of the Communist era in Eastern Europe has been the development of a free press in the former Warsaw Pact countries. In Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, there is also a free, or partly free, press. But recently there have been complaints that dedication to freedom of expression has been slipping in some countries. The New York Times had a story from Slovenia, once a part of Yugoslavia (editor’s note: a former socialist country but not a Warsaw Pact member), saying the prime minister, Janez Janša, is accused of trying to impose censorship there. That’s ironic since Janša is a former journalist and was the leader of Slovenia’s pro-democracy movement in the 1980s. He even served a prison sentence for his anti-government activities. Now he stands accused by 571 former colleagues of trying to impose censorship. They signed a petition against him that went to the Slovenian Parliament and to European leaders. Also interesting, this month Slovenia took over the presidency of the European Union, an organization that represents 500 million Europeans. There are two million Slovenes. The Slovenian newspaper Delo has had problems with Janša. Two of its correspondents were recalled — one from Vienna, Austria, and one from Zagreb, Croatia — because the government didn’t like their coverage. The government also has been trying to arrange a government-friendly ownership for the paper. What is going on with press freedom in Slovenia?

Mitja Meršol, columnist, Delo newspaper, Ljubljana, Slovenia: When the new centralized government came into power with Prime Minister Janša, we experienced a deal between the government and the major shareholder of Delo newspaper. The deal was that the government would get influence in the paper by allowing the paper’s owner, a beer brewery, to quietly and conveniently buy a large share in a Slovenian company that was partly state-owned. The prime minister had a say in nominating his people to the top positions within the paper — managerial and editorial. Consequently, the paper’s editorial sphere was acting to please the government. Some correspondents were recalled because they weren’t writing to the taste of the foreign ministry, and there was a biweekly column written by a foreign minister, which is very unusual for any newspaper. We protested against all of that. Since then, the brewery has come to own nearly 100 percent of the newspaper. Then, it got into a clash with the government and changed the manager and the editor. Now, they’re doing this as real owners, so there is no more government influence. There is just the owner, the brewery, that is running the paper.

David Dadge, director, International Press Institute, Vienna, Austria: The International Press Institute carried out a fact-finding mission in Slovenia and is calling for an independent commission to examine the different elements. We’re not accusing the government of acting, but we’re saying the media should be independent and separate from government institutions. It can’t be a wrapped-up gift for successive governments to influence, and it can’t espouse the government’s views. We’ve also issued a statement about the right of reply in Slovakia. The right of reply can be used or abused by politicians to put their own names in the newspapers and disrupt the editorial independence and the business aspects of newspapers. A concern in Poland is that criminal defamation law is being applied. Virtually every country has that law, although it’s not applied as much as it has been in Poland. The IPI calls for the removal of criminal defamation. Physical attacks on journalists have disappeared, but when governments apply pressure, they do it far more subtly; it’s the ownership having media interests; it’s a phone call to an editor-in-chief; it’s control through state news agencies; and it’s failure to cleanse broadcasting services of political influence. That’s the full range of problems.

 

Zapis je bil objavljen 24.05.2008 ob 20:14 in je shranjen pod Dogajanje v medijskih hišah, Lastniški in drugi vplivi in pritiski, Mediji, Odkrita novinarska cenzura, Politični vplivi in pritiski. Komentarjem lahko sledite z RSS 2.0 feedom. Komentarji so trenutno onemogočeni, lahko pa pustite trackback s svoje strani.