STA, 15 October - The Slovenian Press Agency has expressed indignation at Prime Minister Janez Janša's Twitter post in which he describes the agency as a "national disgrace, an evident abuse of the name it carries".
The statement accompanied the retweet of a post by the editor of Demokracija, Jože Biščak, who questioned STA's priorities by noting that a report about the construction of the Cirkovce-Pince power line, which Janša attended, had fewer words than an interview with the rapper Zlatko.
"Judging the quality of reporting work based on word count, the basis for Prime Minister Janez Janša's response on Twitter, is anything but a professional standard," the STA said.
#STA je nacionalna sramota, eklatantna zloraba imena, ki ga nosi @STA_novice https://t.co/7E4GAo8swG
— Janez Janša (@JJansaSDS) October 15, 2020
It noted that several news items had been published about the event Janša attended, whereas the interview with Zlatko accompanied the release of his new album. Moreover, these are different genres that cannot be compared either in terms of form or length.
"Such a manner of labelling the work of reporters of the STA, which is owned by the state but performs a public service, is inadmissible, baseless and is far from the kind of stance we would expect from the president of the largest political party and current prime minister," the agency said.
This is not the first time Janša has written about the STA this way. In March he designated the agency as a ventilator of fake news.
The Slovenian Journalists' Association said it was concerned about a new attack on a media outlet by the prime minister on social networks, noting that the STA is "one of the key building blocks of the Slovenian media environment". The association also stressed that the STA wire is used by media across the board, regardless of their world view, which further justifies it being called a national agency.
Rejecting criticism that is based on incomparable benchmarks, the association said it was "additionally surprised that the prime minister, who publicly urges the citizens to act responsibly in fighting coronavirus, invests energy in confrontation with the media, which are key in the dissemination of information about the measures the government is taking".
