Since returning to power in 2023, nationalist Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has tightened his grip on what he deems “hostile” media, raising alarm among press watchdogs and independent outlets.
Like Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban, Fico and his allies have gradually been reshaping Slovakia’s media landscape amid accusations of political interference.
In just two years, the EU country has slid 21 places in the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders, a watchdog.
Concerns among media branded “anti-governmental” have recently intensified after a handful of journalists, including a star anchor, quit independent TV Markiza, which has been at the forefront of Fico’s campaign to muzzle dissenting voices.
Dozens of Markiza’s journalists also signed open letters that denounced increasing political and internal pressure to favour governing coalition parties in their coverage.
Gabriela Kajtarova was among those who decided to leave the TV station after working there for years.
When she joined the outlet that was founded in 1996, “the newsroom was independent, bold and a thorn in the side of government politicians from across the political spectrum”, she said.
But the situation drastically changed.
“I can no longer identify with the values conveyed, which promote particular political parties, and turn a strong editorial team into a mouthpiece of platitudes,” Kajtarova told AFP.
– Conflicts of interest –
Shortly after securing his fourth term as prime minister in 2023, Fico initially labelled four Slovak media — TV Markiza, broadsheet dailies SME and Dennik N, and Aktuality — as “hostile media”, denying some of them access to government pressers.
“Interferences in Markiza’s news content” started after Fico’s return, said former reporter Adel Ghannam.
Journalists were for example “pushed to cover anti-government protests as little as possible”, he said.
Fico and his coalition partners also began verbally targeting journalists deemed critical of the government, threatening increased surveillance, lawsuits or the loss of vital advertising contracts.
Markiza is no longer on the banned list, said Ghannam, adding that “the most powerful outlet in independent Slovakia has, to a certain extent, become subservient to the government”.
As pressure on media freedom intensifies in the region, “it is essential that owners support editorial independence and resist offers to suppress critical journalism,” said Veclav Stetka, a media expert at Loughborough University in the UK.
But in the case of TV Markiza, which is run by the Czech PPF group, a media and telecoms giant founded by a billionaire, “the owner’s interests clash” with these journalistic principles, Stetka told AFP.
“PPF has commercial interests in Slovakia’s state-regulated sectors such as telecommunications — so it only makes sense it seeks to maintain good relations with the government,” he said.
– ‘Soft censorship’ –
Faced with the accusations, Markiza’s management has defended its “fully impartial and balanced coverage”, and denied to AFP that it is “a tool serving political interests.”
“What we are seeing is soft censorship” in Slovakia that could lead to the “disappearance of press freedom,” said Pavol Szalai, regional director at Reporters Without Borders.
Even though content is not being banned as such, there are “unexplained changes to programmes and pressure on journalists with strong integrity to leave,” Szalai explained.
He said private channels have a greater responsibility now that public television and radio broadcaster RTVS was replaced by the state-funded STVR organisation following the adoption of a widely criticised bill.
Within the European Union, Slovakia has recently seen “one of the biggest, if not the biggest, decline in press freedom”, said Szalai.
“It shows how quickly the right of citizens to receive reliable information is being undermined,” he warned.
According to STVR’s newly appointed director Martina Flasikova, who is also the daughter of a founding member of Fico’s Smer party, the role of media is “to open up the space for many truths, so that viewers can freely decide”.
Culture Ministry representatives last year argued that those claiming that the earth is flat should be given as much airtime as recognised scientific experts.
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