STA, 11 February 2022 - The International Press Institute has a released a report on Hungarian investments in foreign media that suggests the Hungarian model of government control of the media is being transposed to Slovenia, which it says is important in light of Slovenia's upcoming general election.

The report says that after subjugating media at home, the Hungarian government, aided by companies controlled by its political allies, has started building a media empire in Slovenia and North Macedonia that is supposed to "act as megaphones for its regional ideological allies."

Both Slovenia and North Macedonia have thus seen in recent years an inflow of Hungarian investments in media, either in media serving Hungarian national minorities in several countries, or media connected with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's ideological allies.

Such investments - the most notable examples in Slovenia include the TV channel Planet TV, publisher Nova Obzorja and TV station and news portal Nova24 - raise serious questions about the exporting of Fidesz's model of illiberal democracy to countries in Hungary's neighbourhood and beyond, the report says.

And while Fidesz politicians insist such investments are purely commercial, IPI says the evidence suggests that they are "rather part of a broad political strategy of influencing media and supporting ideological allies of Fidesz," in Slovenia's case Prime Minister Janez Janša.

The report, available at https://ipi.media/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/hu.pdf, was written in collaboration with independent investigative reporters and leans heavily on Slovenian investigative journalism portals.

STA, 1 February 2022 - Igor Kadunc, the director of the Slovenian Press Agency, and Uroš Urbanija, the head of the Government Communication Office (UKOM), signed on Tuesday a contract on financing the STA's public service in 2022. The deal maintains a system for the calculation of the relevant fee that is based on the actual amount of content the STA produces.

The two sides have thus "laid the foundation for the undisrupted continuation of the STA's work in this important year, when the agency is expected to work responsibly during the super election year", Kadunc told the STA.

The agreement "essentially follows the basics we have already established in the 2021 contract", he said, adding: "But we have committed in the [latest] contract to work intensively to ensure that the distinction between public service and commercial activities is in line with the state aid regime as defined by Slovenia's standards and by the EU."

Commenting on this, UKOM said in a press release that the total annual amount planned when it comes to state aid in the form of compensation for the financing of public service for 2022 remained the same as in the previous two years, at EUR 2,028,000.

UKOM pointed out that this amount "represents an advance payment which will be subject to adjustment by means of an annex to the contract once the STA has fully reconciled the accounting distinction between public service and commercial activities".

"The contract sets down the necessary such activities of the STA and sets a deadline of 30 June 2022 for the fulfilment of these commitments," UKOM said.

Under the current director, the agency has also started activities to establish cost accounting information "leading to the knowledge of the correct full cost price of services, that is the price for news (in full text) by editorial or content area and for an average news item, photo, etc.", UKOM added.

All this will be "the necessary basis for the new director to correctly implement the rules governing state aid for services of general economic interest on the one hand, and to manage the STA economically and efficiently on the other, and last but not least, for STA employees to be able to evaluate their performance at work".

UKOM said that in this way it would be clear where funds for the STA's public service go to. Moreover, it was again critical of former STA director Bojan Veselinovič and the STA's supervisory board.

Kadunc noted earlier that "unfortunately, no solution could be found for the picture service, but as soon as possible we will propose an amendment to the law that would more clearly classify photographs as a commercial activity, as is the case everywhere in Europe."

Currently, the STA is required to disseminate a portion of its photographs free of charge, a rule that has been criticised by professional photographers, as they noted this led to uneven footing in the industry.

Meanwhile, UKOM said that the contract complied with the requirements of the act on the STA, including free access to photographs.

The contract is based on the government decree on the STA's public service, adopted last year, which changed the way public service is financed by introducing payment by volume of production. The STA is challenging the decree in court, while complying with its provisions pending a final decision from the court.

Representatives of the STA staff welcomed the signing of the contract, as this provides at least basic financial security for the agency in 2022, they said. However, they maintain that the per-piece funding model based on the number of news items and photographs is unacceptable.

The STA's editorial board, workers' council, in-house trade union and representatives of STA desks wrote in a joint release that the model "pushes the need to provide as much content as possible, which is a misguided approach as it limits the possibilities of directing resources to more complex content with a higher added value".

The most problematic feature of this model or the contract in general, they reiterated, "is that it allows UKOM to arbitrarily decide which content it will or will not fund as part of public service". "This may lead to an impermissible indirect influence on editorial autonomy, which we will not accept," they said.

At the same time, this could also result in renewed financial instability of the STA, they warned, saying that the STA would not be paid more if it produced more than planned, but might be sanctioned if it under-produced or produced content that according to UKOM was not part of public service.

"The current complications surrounding the public service payment for the last two months of last year show that this could happen," they added.

Also responding to the developments, the agency's previous director Veselinovič welcomed the announcement of the basis for the STA's financing in 2022, but also pointed out that the signing of the contract had been delayed considerably, taking into account the STA law.

He denied UKOM's claim that only now it will be clear what the funds from the state budget intended for the STA are spent on, noting that the STA's operations had always been transparent and supervised.

He also dismissed UKOM's accusations against the agency's accounting, noting audits of the STA had found no irregularities.

After performing its public service without pay since the start of 2021, the STA signed the 2021 contract with UKOM in November 2021. The contract envisaged public funding worth EUR 2 million.

STA, 29 November 2021 - The Slovenian Press Agency (STA) is one of the 16 European press agencies that will join forces in a common European press centre whose creation was announced on Monday by the European Commission in a bid to strengthen the European media space. The pan-European Newsroom will be supported with EU funds.

This will be "the first ever pan-European newsroom space, which will allow journalists to report jointly on EU affairs and promote, let's say, a spirit of collaboration", European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton said as he announced the new project at an event in Brussels on Monday.

The Commission will support the project with around EUR 1.76 million, which will be used, among other things, to finance training and set up a new multilingual website with selected texts on EU topics from participating news agencies, said the Commission.

The project is due to start in January, while the Newsroom is expected to become operational in mid-2022.

The STA's acting director Igor Kadunc welcomed the project. "We are pleased that the European Commission has recognised the importance of news agencies in providing and disseminating credible information in Europe and the world, and we are proud that the STA is participating in this project," he commented.

The project will be coordinated by the German news agency dpa. The other participating agencies are also AFP (France), ansa (Italy), AGERPRES (Romania), APA (Austria), ATA (Albania), Belga (Belgium), BTA (Bulgaria), HINA (Croatia), EFE and Europapress (Spain), TASR (Slovakia), FENA (Bosnia-Herzegovina), MIA (North Macedonia) and Tanjug (Serbia).

STA, 25 November 2021 - Journalists of the news programme of the television arm of RTV Slovenija protested on Thursday against the relevant draft programme and production plan for 2022, calling on the programming council of the public broadcaster to reject it and adjust it so that it "appropriately implements the mission of RTV".

TV Slovenija journalist Igor E. Bergant told the protest press conference that the draft plan had not been significantly changed compared to its initial format despite remarks from the news programme journalists.

The key remarks and warnings remain, with certain changes "in the expert opinion of the news programme journalists being detrimental to the mission of the public institute", as cancelling and relocating shows "is reminiscent of some other times."

According to Bergant, the problem is that the plan is not well worked out in certain segments, and it is completely unclear how it could be realistically implemented at all even if the greatest possible effort was invested.

He believes that the changes do not solve the issue of ratings, as claimed by the management of RTV Slovenija as the initiators of the changes.

"Informing is not the only one, but is certainly one of the key missions of European radio-television services, where ratings are not and must not be the only or the main criterion," Bergant said.

He noted that the news programme journalists at TV Slovenija were not afraid of changes as such, as they wanted to work "even more, even better and in better conditions," while adding that the proposed changes did not enable this.

"The initiators even explicitly speak about an experiment," Bergant said, adding that now was not the time for experiments as RTV Slovenija is facing financial difficulties, but to "focus on what is already known".

The journalists also noted that the issue was not about individuals or politics or about problems with communication, but about an "ill-advised, and partially unprofessional" and "uncoordinated plan".

Manica Janežič Ambrožič, who stepped down as the TV news programme editor-in-chief in mid-October over the plan, said that the shrinking of the programme and moving some of the shows to channel 2 undermined the role and message of RTV Slovenija.

Janežič Ambrožič, who continues to serve as the acting editor-in-chief, noted that "134 colleagues ... think that the planned thorough changes are a step in the wrong direction."

She stressed that the journalists did not stand united because they feared change, but because the plan was an "extremely risky business", adding that changes needed to be "professionally reasoned, discussed and coordinated production-wise."

Also showing up at the protest press conference were many journalists from other media outlets, while support has also been expressed by the expert public.

According to the TV Slovenija news programme journalists, the appeal to the RTV Slovenija management to rethink the draft plan for next year has been signed by 126 out of a total of 143 journalists.

TV Slovenija acting director Valentin Areh rejected the claims by journalists about the news content being shrunk under the plan, adding that the idea was to put the interest of viewers first.

"The news programme of TV Slovenija is in a serious crisis, and ratings for a majority of shows are dropping ... which is why we decided for programme changes modelled after the most successful public broadcasters such as the BBC, ZDF and ORF," he said.

Areh, who is puzzled by the journalists "requesting that nothing must change despite the drastic drop in ratings", added that the management was obliged to take measures and take the wishes and interests of viewers into account.

The Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts meanwhile expressed support for TV Slovenija journalists, saying that the management should lend an ear to the remarks of employees, who should have the main say in such matters.

"Given the currently very chaotic management of the institute, which is becoming increasingly susceptible to informal pressure from external actors and their private interests, the position of the employees is where reasonable reflection should be anchored," adds the statement signed by almost 80 members of the centre.

The programming council of RTV Slovenija is expected to start discussing the plan next Monday.

STA, 12 November 2021 - The Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) has welcomed the signing of a contract that ended the financial crisis at the Slovenian Press Agency (Slovenska tiskovna agencija - STA), while raising concerns that the current conditions of the deal could leave the STA in a financially weaker position in the long term as it performs its vital public service.

The MFRR noted in a press release on Friday that the agreement between the new acting director of the STA and the director of the Government Communication Office (Urad vlade za komuniciranje - UKOM) "brings to a close a gruelling 10-month crisis".

During the crisis, the "STA was forced to operate without legally-mandated state funding for 312 days and narrowly avoided bankruptcy," it said, noting that UKOM had been repeatedly appealed to reinstate the financing and the issue raised at the EU level.

"While our organisations welcome the end of the immediate crisis, the issues for the STA are far from over. Ultimately, these payments were always due to the agency under two separate laws," the MFRR said.

It noted that several outstanding issues in the contract needed to be resolved and a new business plan and agreement for 2022 need to be approved.

"Moving forward, based on UKOM's handling of this dispute, we also retain concerns that its new oversight of STA's financial activities could infringe on editorial independence. Observation must not morph into interference."

The MFRR added that the crisis had left the STA "drained psychologically as well as financially", and that, "despite pressures and smears from top government officials", its journalists had continued to work with great professionalism and dignity.

The press release also takes note of the crowdfunding campaign for the STA of the Association of Slovenian Journalists (DNS) and the Slovenian Journalists' Union (SNS) that has raised a total of EUR 385,000 to keep the national press agency afloat.

"However, the unavoidable conclusion is that this funding crisis should never have reached this point. We maintain that this manufactured dispute was driven primarily by an effort by the government to try and exert greater control over the STA."

The statement has been co-signed by the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), Free Press Unlimited (FPU), International Press Institute (IPI) and OBC Transeuropa.

STA, 10 November 2021 - The Slovenian Association of Journalists (Društvo novinarjev Slovenije - DNS) has come out in defence of fellow journalists with the news portal Necenzurirano.si who are facing increasing pressure from a tax advisor.

Rok Snežič has brought 39 defamation suits against three journalists of the outlet over their articles about his business dealings and his role in a loan taken out by the Prime Minister Janez Janša's Democratic Party (SDS) in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 2017.

The DNS notes that this was the first example in Slovenia of a form of pressure known abroad as Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP), actions designed to silence criticism and dissent.

However, Snežič, who Necenzurirano claims has close ties with Janša, has now stepped up his pressure, reporting the journalists to the National Bureau of Investigation and the Financial Administration.

"He alleges they conduct their business unlawfully, are supposedly funded with money of suspicious origin, get paid in cash and other irregularities which the journalists say are false accusations and fabrications with no basis in facts," the DNS said.

The association does not wish to deny those who are hurt by journalists' articles their legitimate right to defend their good name, but it believes the latest "is only a new, graver form of pressure".

The association believes that Snežič has ties to the police as well as to the Financial Administration in what they see as "potential abuse of repressive institutions with the intention to silence journalists".

"Such manoeuvres are frequent in European countries with authoritarian governments and seek to silence critical journalists by criminalising their work and personalities. The goal of such pressure is to suppress all critical media and other critical voices in society."

The association will notify its international partners and relevant institutions of the matter, arguing that such continued stepping up of pressure on journalists jeopardises media freedom.

The case of the Necenzurirano journalists was also mentioned in the latest annual report by the Council of Europe Platform for the Protection of Journalism and Safety of Journalists, issued in April.

STA, 8 November 2021 - Igor Kadunc, the new acting director of the STA (Slovenska tiskovna agencija), and Uroš Urbanija, director of the Government Communication Office (UKOM), signed an agreement on the STA's public service for 2021, UKOM said in a press release. Urbanija told the press the contract said that the STA should receive EUR 2 million for this year.

According to Urbanija, the contract is based on the STA law, which says the STA must publish ledes of news items about events in Slovenia and abroad in Slovenian and English, provide radio news, and photographs from the most important events while news items about minorities and the Slovenian community abroad must be publicly available in full.

"And what is the most important, the content must be accessible to all free of charge under the same conditions. I hope this is a positive message not only to the media using these contents but also to all the staff, as it was unacceptable that the previous STA management had used the staff in desperate attempts to bypass legal provisions," he added.

Kadunc said at a joint statement that he was happy they had managed to sign the contract, "which will enable normal financing and thus also the STA's activities this year, while we will also have something left for next year".

He warned that some issues still needed to be resolved, pointing to the ambiguous provisions of the STA act on the STA photo services. He said it will now be possible to address these challenges in peace while a suitable business plan is also prepared for next year.

"I think it's in everybody's best interest for us to have a good public press agency, which is backed with public funding due to the small size of the market. The job is not done yet, as we must still find solutions for next year that will satisfy both sides," Kadunc said.

He stressed his first priority since he took over as the STA's acting head over on 31 October had been to solve this pressing matter of financing.

According to him, many have shown interest in recent months in the STA working without disturbance while there have been some not very fortunate moves.

"Primarily, the desire was to change the concept under which the STA has received money from the state budget in the past as support for its public service and functioning in a very limited market.

"The concept the government implemented with a decree on the STA's public service envisaged that the STA gets this money for conducting its services. But this seems to be lacking a proper legal basis, which is why the STA is checking the suitability of the wording from the decree," Kadunc said.

He added that the commitments that the STA had made with the signing of the contract for this year "are not such that could not be fulfilled by the agency".

"But of course it is important to put everything in perspective. If the STA is important today, I think it will be even more important in the future. And in order for it to fulfil these expectations, it had a lot of work to do. So do I, who have been entrusted with leading the agency," Kadunc said.

The signing of the contract was welcomed, yet with some reservation, by STA staff, the Slovenian Journalist Association, Trade Union of Journalists, and President Borut Pahor.

The staff pointed out the agency will receive the funds it is entitled to under two laws, but warned certain solutions could indirectly affect the editorial autonomy and negatively affect the agency's finances, especially if they were permanent changes to the agency's business model.

If these changes prove to be harmful, the staff will insist on adjustments that will allow for the agency's work to continue without disturbances.

The staff warned that the STA had paid a very high price for the one-year financial exhaustion. "A number of excellent staff have left us, the agony has compromised the quality of the agency's service to the public, halted a number of development projects and, last but not least, has left us psychologically exhausted."

The STA staff expects this "completely uncalled for pressure on the STA is now over", adding they will continue to strive for a quality and independent reporting and preservation of the STA's autonomy.

The Slovenian Journalist Association (DNS) and Journalist Trade Union expect the financial draining of the agency to end and the government and STA to come to an appropriate agreement on 2022 financing as well.

The DNS noted today's signing was no cause for special celebration as it merely meant that "the government finally decided to honour the legislation and pay the STA for providing public service after draining the agency for 312 days".

Assessing today's agreement with restraint and caution, the DNS highlighted the basis for signing the contract could only be the law and not the decree, which it deems unlawful. It also warned that more publicly available content of the STA would mean a drop in the agency's commercial revenue.

Both organisations also thanked all who have donated to the STA in a summer campaign which was relaunched in November. The DNS said that in between the campaigns, from July through October, more than EUR 100,000 was raised. The summer campaign raised over EUR 274,700.

The contract was also welcomed by President Pahor, who stressed on Twitter the STA's "irreplaceable mission" in the media space.

He had called on the government several times in the past months to find a way to finance the STA as soon as possible. In the summer he decorated the STA with the Order of Merit for its services to mark its 30th anniversary.

The STA has been performing its public service without pay since the start of the year and has so far managed to avoid bankruptcy with the sale of three monthly claims against the government and a crowdfunding campaign launched by the DNS.

Today UKOM paid the STA's claim for compensation for the public service in August in the amount of EUR 141,000. The deadline for the payment expired today. The STA claimed the money in June based on a government decree. The STA's business plan envisaged EUR 169,000 in monthly costs for public service.

STA, 15 October - Manica Janežič Ambrožič, the TV news programme editor-in-chief at public broadcaster RTV Slovenija, stepped down on Friday. She said she had decided to do so because she disagreed with changes to the programme and production plan for TV Slovenija's news programme for next year, RTV Slovenija said in a statement.

The RTV Slovenija management labelled her move as a "complete surprise", and TV Slovenija acting director Valentin Areh urged her not to step down today.

The public broadcaster also said that minor changes to the programme and production plan were necessary because of a lack of staff and a drop in ratings of news shows.

For the time being, Janežič Ambrožič will stay on as acting TV news programme editor.

According to some media reports, most of the changes for 2022 concern the news programme, with some news shows to be cut short and some cancelled.

TV Slovenija's news programmes staff and the Slovenian Journalist Trade Union (SNS) regretted Janežič Ambrožič's resignation.

Both are worried about the planned cut in news programmes, which the SNS believes will take the public broadcaster away from European standards.

TV Slovenija's news staff are aware that some changes are needed but are afraid the planned ones are "too radical", so they expect a "thorough discussion".

The SNS meanwhile understands the reasons which led the editor-in-chief to step down. "Cancelling the morning news, shortening the main daily news Dnevnik, and cancelling the majority of news talk shows takes RTV Slovenija away from the leading public European services and lowers standards for Slovenian viewers."

The union thus urged the management to ensure programmes fully in line with the scope of services set down in the RTV Slovenija law, and called on the National Assembly to provide stable media funding for both public service providers - RTV Slovenija and the STA.

The RTV Slovenija programming council is meeting on Monday to discuss the draft programme and production plan, while Janežič Ambrožič's resignation is also expected to be discussed.

STA, 6 October - President of the European Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Mogens Blicher Bjerregaard has warned that media freedom is deteriorating in several European countries, including Slovenia. He has thus called on the European Commission and EU member state leaders to take a stand and call on their counterparts to support media and journalist freedom.

Speaking at a press conference in Ljubljana on Wednesday as the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) delegation wrapped up its visit to Slovenia, Bjerregaard said "it is not only about Slovenia, but about Europe."

Considering the deterioration of media freedom in some European countries in the last 15 years, and the expansion of the trend to an increasing number of countries, it needs to be noted how important it is to stop this, he added.

"It is thus important for Europe what is going on in Slovenia, Hungary and Poland," Bjerregaard said, adding that political leaders should be aware that free media were the fundamental pillar of democracy, as they provided relevant information.

"We don't need state leaders to tell us how journalists should work and how they should behave. We need leaders who will protect freedom of media and freedom of speech," he said.

Bjerregaard welcomed the European Commission's plan to overhaul legislation on media freedom. "So far, letters were coming from the Commission, there were a lot of words, which has not helped. In Poland, in Hungary the media are still in the same situation and the situation in Slovenia will deteriorate if nothing happens."

According to the IFJ president, the planned measures would allow the EU to intervene in a member state where media freedom would be breached, which has not been possible so far.

One of the practical possibilities for implementing such measures would be, for instance, a special fund at the EU level from which media who found themselves in a situation like the Slovenian Press Agency (STA) could draw funds for survival.

Bjerregaard noted that words uttered by leaders had weight. "We have seen in many countries that state leaders created an environment of intimidation of journalists with their rhetoric."

He thus called on the European Commission and the leaders taking part in the EU-Western Balkans summit in Slovenia to issue a joint call to their colleagues to support media and journalist freedom.

He said when the countries that used to be under the influence of the Soviet Union joined the EU there was a clear plan that the state media there would become public media. But now we see in some countries public media returning into state media, he said.

When that happens, such media are no longer free or independent, but instead leaders use the media outlet for their propaganda, he said, but added that he did not claim this was the fate of the STA or RTV Slovenija, but there was a risk.

Jamie Wiseman of the International Press Institute said the state of the media freedom in Slovenia, Poland and Hungary differed, but there were key elements linking those three countries.

He listed smear campaigns against professional and critical journalists, attributing ideological and political bias to media, polarisation of media and journalists, attacks on independent journalists at press agencies, and advertising manipulation by the state and state companies.

These are different forms of pressure, they are happening in all three countries and the model was established by Orban and his Fidesz party.

While it is still a long way for Slovenia to come into the situation that Hungary or Poland are in now, Wiseman said it was cause for concern to see the patterns and pressures repeated in Slovenia.

Despite the pressure, Slovenia still has a lively independent media scene and places high in media freedom rankings and there is great support and solidarity of the Journalists' Association and Trade Union. But just because the media landscape is on a such a high level in Slovenia it means that if attacks happen here, they can happen anywhere, warned Wiseman.

MFRR REPORT: Press Freedom Deteriorating in Slovenia under Latest Janša Government

STA, 29 September 2021 - The supervisory board of the public broadcaster RTV Slovenija elected on Wednesday Janez Čadež its chair. The board's term expires next January, RTVS said.

Until April, the supervisory board had been led by Andrej Grah Whatmough, who then took over as RTVS director general.

At the end of August, the supervisors elected a new chief supervisor, Danilo Tomšič. Six out of the 11 members were present at the session and four submitted written proposals. At the same session, the supervisors tasked Grah Whatmough to immediately report on the legitimacy of his actions, including dismissing the director of the public broadcaster's TV programme section.

But Grah Whatmough quoted a legal firm in saying that the session had been illegal due for procedural reasons, so all its decisions were null and void.

Deputy chief supervisor Borut Rončević filed a law suit to challenge the decisions made at the session on 25 August. The RTVS management also said these decisions were null and void.

On Tuesday, the government dismissed Matjaž Medved and Petra Majer as representatives of the founders in the supervisory board, and appointed Anton Tomažič and Milenko Ziherl in their place.

Medved and Majer were appointed by the Miro Cerar government in 2018.

A group of RTVS supervisors said today that the dismissal of the two supervisors had no affect and that they were still members of the supervisory board. They argued that a similar government decree on their dismissal from April 2020 had been stayed by the Supreme Court.

The pair also announced they would use all legal means available to determine whether the government move had been legal.

Tomšič said that at today's session, which in line with the rules of procedures was non-existent, "the new majority elected a 'new' chief supervisor ..."

The RTVS supervisory board is 11-member strong. Five members are appointed by the National Assembly, four by the government and two by employees.