Populists are threatening Europe’s independent public broadcasters

EVERY SELF-RESPECTINGRTV-SLORTV-SLONOSNOSNOS European country needs a public broadcaster. So after Slovenia seceded from Yugoslavia in 1991, it gave Radio-Television of Slovenia () a mandate to report independently, unlike the state propaganda that passed for news under communism. Indeed, has proved too independent for Slovenia’s current prime minister, Janez Jansa. For more than a year he has been browbeating the network’s journalists on social media. Wags have consequently dubbed Mr Jansa “Marshal Twito”, a nod to Josip Tito, Yugoslavia’s longtime dictator. His government wants to pass a new media law that will make RTV-SLO easier to control. The Netherlands’ national public news broadcaster, the , also has its roots in a reaction against authoritarian propaganda, that of the Nazi occupiers during the second world war. The has an independent board and a guaranteed multi-year budget. But lately Dutch public broadcasters have faced intimidation, too. Reporters have been physically attacked at protests and while reporting on covid-19 measures. In October the removed its logo from its satellite vans after they were repeatedly harassed in traffic.