We are exclusively publishing, in four sequels, a dossier on how the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) and its leader and Prime Minister Janez Janša follow the media strategy of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in controlling the media and their political takeover. Today is the first part.

We are publishing this research text by Lenart J. Kučić in cooperation with the Slovenian research portal podcrto.si, which systematically monitors events on the Slovenian media and political scene.

Less than two months after the appointment of the new Slovenian government in March 2020, Prime Minister Janez Janša published a text on the official government website in which he presented his views on the relationship between journalists and politics. In the text entitled War with the Media (Vojna z mediji), he was very critical of the Slovenian media, especially the two largest televisions: the public RTV Slovenia and the commercial Pop TV.

Among other things, he wrote that professional and ethical work in both television stations was not present due to “inciting editing and running shows” and that “average or below average” journalists and editors were supported by “pillars of the deep state”. He accused the media of spreading a false picture of the situation in the country by provoking a sense of the state of emergency and attacking a democratically elected government trying to curb the covid-19 pandemic.

Only two months later, the government drafted proposals to amend four media laws that, if adopted in the proposed form, would significantly reshape the domestic media landscape: the Law on Media, the Law on the Slovenian Press Agency (STA), the Law on Audiovisual Services, and the Law on Public Radio and Television (RTVS).

Almost simultaneously with the announcement of the proposal to change the package of media laws, another important change took place in the television market. Last July, Telecom Slovenia, which is majority state-owned, announced the sale of Planet TV, Slovenia’s second-largest commercial television (only Pop TV and Kanal A, owned by production house Pro Plus, are larger). Planet TV went into the hands of Hungarian owners close to Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his party Fidesz. The same circle includes the Hungarian owners of the Slovenian television Nova24TV and other companies in the media system of the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS): the political weekly Demokracija and the local internet media network.

The change in the ownership structure of Planet TV and the content of the changes in media laws indicate that the current SDS-led government wants to increase its influence on television.

This is not the first such attempt by the SDS and its president, Janez Janša. During their first term from 2004 to 2008, they amended the Public Broadcasting Act, which strengthened the policy impact on public service broadcasting and programs. During the second term in 2012-2013, Planet TV was established through the state-owned Telecom Slovenia, which has been considered an SDS project since its inception. In 2015, Janša announced the establishment of a new television – Nova24TV, which began broadcasting in March 2016.

As we will show in our investigation, Janša’s moves were very similar to those performed by Viktor Orbán in Hungary before him. For both politicians, the most important medium was television: a medium that still has a key influence on voter decisions.

Television remains the dominant medium

In Slovenia, despite the spread of the Internet and social networks, traditional (linear) television remains the dominant medium, reaching the largest number of voters and potentially having the greatest impact on public opinion. As such, it can effectively play the role of guardian of democracy, drawing attention to the abuse of power. In the hands of the government, however, it becomes a powerful tool with which the ruling policy can stay in power for a long time: pro-government propaganda, silencing criticism, and attacks on opponents.

Television still covers the largest part of the population, and its use is constantly increasing despite social networks and the streaming of video services (YouTube, Netflix …), we were told by the Nielsen agency, which has been monitoring television ratings for the last twenty years.

At the same time, television remains the first and most important source of information, especially major events such as parliamentary elections or the coronavirus epidemic, where “television still has high credibility in all age groups,” we learned in Nielsen.

They added that informative television shows have a large audience among older groups of viewers (over 55), which also represents the largest share of voters.

According to the data of the State Election Commission, as many as 37 percent of voters in the 2018 elections for the Slovenian Parliament were older than 60, and an additional 28 percent were in the age group of 46-60 years. Therefore, a television in Slovenia, especially its news program, is the most exposed target of politics, which wants to strengthen its influence on television content and thus on voters.

Spreading party propaganda under the pretext of balancing the media

Janez Janša and his supporters have been claiming, since Slovenia’s independence, that the political right has been unjustly deprived of the media influence it deserves, which we have already published in previous investigations into the history of party media under the auspices of the SDS.

Leading SDS representatives persistently claim that the media have remained in the hands of the political left and the successor to the former party regime, and are therefore disproportionately critical of any right-wing government, and do not emphasize traditional (Christian, national, etc.) values close to most Slovenian citizens.

They believe that such alleged ideological bias can be addressed in two ways. The first is that the existing media should equally represent both ideological sexes (in the opinion of right-wing politics, this would be balanced reporting), and the second is to ensure that these media represent the interests of the right by establishing new media. Attempts to influence the media (changes in the law, establishment, and financing of new media, political staffing …) have always been presented by the SDS as an attempt to balance the necessary ideological balance of the Slovenian media space.

But the history of SDS political interference in the media has shown that their commitment (in their view) to better media, greater pluralism, and traditional values ​​has been just calculated political rhetoric. Namely, the media under the influence of the SDS were not tied to the journalistic code and did not represent the interests of the entire Slovenian right, but the SDS used the media mainly as a separate propaganda channel and weapon for attacks on political opponents, critics, and activists.

The SDS-influenced media not only attacked ideological opponents but also used them repeatedly to put pressure on coalition partners or to attack other politicians on the right. The latest such example is the negative articles about former NSi party president and MEP Ljudmila Novak, who has repeatedly criticized SDS President Janez Janša. Their media largely legitimized the private interests of the party and its leaders, while unsuccessful media projects were left with unpaid debts and suspicions of crime.

Such a view of the role of the media in society is also characteristic of the Hungarian media model, which in recent years has spread to several neighboring countries: along with Slovenia and Northern Macedonia, and countries inhabited by the Hungarian minority (Slovakia and Romania).

This model has been established over the last twenty years by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán with the help of loyal oligarchs, who have gradually subjugated most of the television market in Hungary. Key changes in media legislation, which allowed his party Fidesz to centralize news production and state funding of pro-government media, which would not be able to survive without such subsidies, we announced in previous investigations of the Hungarian media model. From last year’s ownership changes and the draft of new media laws, it can be concluded that the SDS is trying to establish a very similar media model in Slovenia.

Orbán’s media policy

The similarities between the Hungarian media model and the media visions of the SDS president are very visible.

When Viktor Orbán first became Hungarian Prime Minister in 1998, he kept repeating during the campaign that the Hungarian media, despite the political transition, were very unbalanced in their coverage and that Christian, conservative and national ideas did not get adequate media space, the Hungarian told us media researcher Attila Bátorfy, an associate of the Hungarian research media Átlátszó and project manager for data visualization Atlo.

Orbán was very critical of his political predecessors, especially the conservative Prime Minister József Antall, who led Hungary until he died in 1993, wrote Austrian journalist Paul Lendvai in a book on Orbán (Ciceron, 2020). Orban accused Antalla that his government had not created any economic and media foundations for future conservative governments. “We don’t have a radio, we don’t have a single television channel, nor do we have our newspaper. Nothing. And there is no justification for that, “Orbán said in an interview with his later biographer József Debreczeni in 1994.

Therefore, Orban’s first government tried to ideologically reshape the media space, especially through state advertising, Bátorfy explained. With state money, it supported the right-wing political daily Magyar Nemzet (editor-in-chief became Orbán’s confidant and associate Gábor Liszkay), enabled the establishment of the right-wing political weekly Heti Válasz (editor became former Orbán government spokesman and media adviser Gábor Borókai) and temporarily took over RTV. In Hungary, public broadcasting was weak, internally divided, and subordinated to any governing policy, Bátorfy added.

When Orbán lost the election in 2002 and joined the opposition for eight years, he blamed unsympathetic media for the defeat. This was primarily an excuse, Bátorfy believes because Fidesz at the time controlled the public service broadcaster and part of the daily press. The largest and most-watched commercial televisions, TV2 and RTL Klub were almost completely apolitical or politically neutral (they did not criticize Fidesz and Orbán’s government), as was the case with other foreign-owned media.

Nevertheless, Orbán, with the help of a longtime friend and ally Lajos Simicska, began to establish his own party media system. In 2003, Hír TV was established, which operated as Fidesz party television, and was run by the already mentioned Fidesz media adviser Gábor Borókai. Borókai did not establish television himself, but the entire media operation was led by Simicska, our interlocutors from Hungary told us.

Fidesz then, with Simicska’s help, set up two more radio stations (Lánchíd Rádió and Class FM) and took over several outdoor advertising agencies, and some other Orban-friendly media owners joined the new media system. Among them was one of Hungary’s biggest tycoons and Orbán’s supporter Gábor Széles, who founded the business and news television station Echo TV in 2006.

Such a special media system has enabled Fidesz, as the opposition party, to successfully dictate the national media agenda, Bátorfy said. Hungarian public RTV also took part, as Fidesz managed to retain several supporters among editors and journalists, who were appointed to certain positions during their first term.

The first takeover of Slovenian public RTV

Like Orban, Janez Janša claims that after independence, the media remained in the hands of the so-called continuity and did not listen to the values of the political right. He blamed the media for his political failures, and after winning the 2004 elections, he had, like Orban during his first term in 1998, his first chance to take over public RTV.

The first step was to change media legislation. Six months after the appointment of Janez Janša’s first government, the Slovenian parliament adopted a new law on RTV Slovenia in July 2005, prepared by SDS MP Branko Grims and some colleagues. The Minister of Culture, who was responsible for the drafting of the media law at the time, is the current Minister of Culture, Vasko Simoniti.

Among the most important changes to the new law was the establishment of a new governing body of the public RTV (programming council) and a significant increase in the powers of the general director of RTVS, appointed by the programming council. The council had 29 councilors, 21 of whom were appointed by the Slovenian parliament, which significantly increased the influence of political parties on the business, staffing, and content of the national parliament.

Due to numerous criticisms from the media profession, journalists, and the opposition, the government subsequently called an official referendum on the Law on Radio and Television of Slovenia. In the campaign, government officials, in addition to balancing political reporting, promised a better TV program with a lower subscription price. In a referendum on September 25, 2005, the government narrowly managed to ratify the new law because it was supported by 50.3 percent of voters.

In January 2006, MPs voted for the first time on the composition of the new governing bodies of public service broadcasting, as members of the supervisory and program boards were elected. The media reported that members of the government coalition, before the vote, were instructed to support specific candidates.

The first president of the program council was historian Stane Granda, a member of the Assembly for the Republic and a member of the Association for the Values of Slovenian Independence, who regularly appears in the SDS-sponsored media as a publicist and commentator. In February 2006, the program council appointed Anton Guzej as the new general director of RTVS, and he appointed Vinko Vasle and Jože Možina, journalists close to the political right, as directors of radio and television. The new editor of the news program, Rajko Gerić, was also close to the right.

Tomorrow at 11 a.m. we continue with the second part of the text!