Culture Ministry Believes STVR Will Be Independent Broadcaster with Flasikova at Helm
Bratislava, May 12 (TASR) - The Culture Ministry believes that under the leadership of new general director of public-service STVR Martina Flasikova, the public-service broadcaster will become independent and transparent, TASR was told by ministry's communications department head Petra Bacinska on Monday.
"The Culture Ministry sees the changes in the STVR's management as an opportunity to strengthen public confidence in objective, professional and responsible broadcasting," said Bacinska, noting that the Culture Ministry will continue to support steps to strengthen transparency and to ensure that STVR fulfils its mission for the benefit of society as a whole.
Martina Flasikova has become the new general director of public broadcaster STVR. The STVR Council, which has the power to elect and dismiss the public broadcaster's head under current legislation, made the decision in a secret ballot at its meeting following the hearings of the candidates on Monday.
Flasikova garnered seven votes, while acting director Igor Slanina received two votes from the council members.
The project of elected general director of public-service broadcaster STVR Martina Flasikova is quite well elaborated, but the question is how she'll be able to translate the vision in the project into reality, said House culture and media committee members Zora Jaurova and Dana Kleinert (Progressive Slovakia/PS) following the Monday's hearing and election of the STVR general director.
Jaurova thinks that the new director will have a hard time, pointing out that the current law gives increased powers to the STVR Council. "That director is fully dependent on the council and actually can't be fully autonomous," she said. "At this point, I have no choice but to keep my fingers crossed that she'll be able to retain as much autonomy as possible and be able to push through as much of her modernisation project as possible," she said.
However, the MP also pointed to Flasikova's connection to the eReport news website. "This very much undermines everything we read in her project about independent and impartial professional journalism," she stated.
The opposition 'Slovakia' party considers the election of Martina Flasikova as general director of public-service broadcaster STVR to be a warning message for the objectivity of the public-service media, TASR learnt from party's spokesman Matus Bystriansky on Monday.
The 'Slovakia' party also considers the way of selecting the new STVR director to be "scandalous", criticising the fact that the public was not allowed to give questions to the candidates. It also points out that the new director is the daughter of Fedor Flasik, who founded the news website eReport, which is uncritical of the government.
"Choosing Flasik's daughter to be the head of radio and television is certainly a huge risk that it will soon be just one government propaganda," said party leader Igor Matovic.
