Every year, 3 May is a date which celebrates the fundamental principles of press freedom, to evaluate press freedom around the world, to defend the media from attacks on their independence and to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the exercise of their profession. The Association of journalists and publicists has published a statement on the media freedom in Slovenia:

" Those journalists and editors who deliberately created confusion and crippl efforts to fight covid 19 are co-responsible for the unnecessary number of deaths from the disease.

The Association of Journalists and Publicists (ZNP) is pleased that Slovenia has been adopting the formal conditions for plural media development for the last three decades, since the fall of communism and the establishment of an independent state. At the same time, we note with regret that the state of the Slovenian media, from the point of view of pluralism and professionalism, has never been in such a crisis since 1990 and has never been subjected to so many abuses for political purposes as we are witnessing since the covid crisis in since March 2020. The Association of Journalists and Publicists sees as the main problem the fact that more than 90 percent of the most influential Slovenian media is closer to the Slovenian left[1], but draws attention to unprecedented professional slips when the largest POP TV and national RTV Slovenia, are completely open, rude and they uncritically abuse and use their media influence in support of the Slovene left – the efforts put into the common desire to regain power in the country. In their power struggle, they are demolishing the efforts of the public and media to prevent spreading the Covid 19 epidemic and often neglect the protection of human lives, which is extremely dangerous and worrying.

Freedom of the press also means a great responsibility that some Slovenian media workers, owners, directors, editors, and journalists have not been able to cope with the new normality in the last year. We are thinking mainly of those who direct their efforts to the overthrow of the government instead of channeling their efforts to the protection of human lives due to the coronavirus epidemic.

ZNP distances itself from media manipulations regarding the fate and threat to the Slovenian Press Agency. The fact is that our distinguished member, the late Borut Meško, after whom the award given for journalistic achievements by our association is named, is, in addition to the beaten journalist Miro Petek, those two are the most outstanding victims among Slovenian journalists of the modern era. Therefore, we find it particularly reprehensible that the current director Bojan Veselinovič, who pays journalists poorly and has a higher salary than the president, politicizes the SZA instead of simply providing the signatory of the co-financing agreement with the information he justifiably requests.

[1] The Slovenian left is the consists of the political actors either from the previous regime or the followers of their ideology. They are also mainly the powers of the productive assets and resources.