Former prime minister Robert Fico will not appear in the pre-election debates hosted by TV Markíza, and joins MEP Milan Uhrík, leader of the far-right Republika, in accusing Slovakia’s most popular network of biased misinformation, adding to a history of conflict with the media.
The potential government partners announced their refusal to appear on TV Markíza on social media, with Fico’s S&D-aligned Smer party kicking off the boycott on Thursday and the far-right Republika joining on Sunday.
“The last three years of work of selected editors and presenters of TV Markiza have been marked by politics and biased misinformation rather than objectivity and impartiality,” the Smer party wrote on Facebook, citing coverage of a Smer rally, corruption investigations against its members and “approving” coverage of government regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Uhrík joined in with a video in which he alleged Markíza‘s “bias” might be caused by money from “vaccine ads”.
In reaction to the allegations, the broadcaster’s leadership said in a statement that “TV Markíza produces all news and journalistic programmes according to strict editorial rules” and that “they must be based on facts, objective, impartial, prepared in accordance with the law and respectful of human rights.”
Fico has also refused to answer TV Markíza‘s questions on whether he is still open to forming a coalition with Republika after Uhrík reiterated his party’s call for a referendum on leaving NATO, which he said should be held “in the next four years”.
Markíza is Slovakia‘s most-watched TV station, and its reporting is regularly nominated and awarded the Open Society Foundation´s Journalistic Award.
Fico’s premiership ended prematurely in 2018 after the murder of journalist Ján Kuciak led to nationwide protests that brought down his government. During his time in office, he also called journalists “dirty anti-Slovak prostitutes” and “idiotic hyenas”, resulting in a 10-point drop in the Media Freedom Index.
While boycotting Slovakia’s largest broadcaster, Fico did not shy away from recording a podcast with Daniel Bombic, a YouTuber better known as Danny Kollar, who is the subject of three international arrest warrants for extremist crimes.
Kollar called Vladimir Putin a “great strategist” and used homophobic and anti-Semitic language to describe Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in March 2022.
(Karol Slovik, Barbara Zmušková | EURACTIV.sk)
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