Ljubljana - Reporter says in its latest editorial that Prime Minister Janez Janša is on a mission to subjugate as many media outlets as possible as in his mind the media are the decisive factor for a victory in general election, and there should be no independent or plural media, but only "our" and "their" media.

As TV still has the greatest influence on the electorate, the political appetite there is the greatest, the weekly says, noting that Janša, when he was in the opposition, established "his own party television with the clear intention of returning to power."

But Nova24TV has a negligible reach and convinces only the convinced, so it is no coincidence that the new owner, Hungarian tycoon Jozsef Vido, has been found for Planet TV, which was established during the second Janez Janša government.

"It is no coincidence that Planet TV and Nova24TV host joint pre-election debates and that they broadcast 'exclusive interviews' with the prime minister, which are very similar to those broadcast by the Russian state television with Vladimir Putin."

What is more, Janša's "invasion" of RTV Slovenija just before the election is taking place for a reason - the president of the Democrats (SDS) wants to politically subjugate the public broadcaster so that it dances to his tune during the campaign.

"The public broadcaster is the prey of every government, and Janša tries to subjugate it just as it had been subjugated for many years by the left political camp. So that it remains primarily in the service of politics, not the public."

The largest commercial broadcaster POP TV is also "kept in check" by the ruling politics through Telekom Slovenije, whose management, chaired by SDS's man Cvetko Sršen, launched a EUR 12 million lawsuit against PRO Plus, the owner of POP TV, just before the election.

"Janša, who publicly described POP TV as the largest opposition party, is now strangling it through Telekom to make it more sympathetic to him in the campaign."

The goal is to win over as many media outlets as possible before the election, because in a bipolar media world imposed by politics, there can only be room for right-wing or left-wing propaganda. Independent media and autonomous journalists do not exist.

Reporter says that it is thus no coincidence that free copies of the weeklies Demokracija and Domovina, which it calls "party propaganda pamphlets" of Janez Janša and New Slovenia (NSi) president Matej Tonin, are being sent to households ahead of the election.

One reason why the weeklies were established was "to push the politically unpredictable Reporter out of the media market. In the right-wing media, there must be no criticism of right-wing politicians, there can only be propaganda. If there is not, the right-wing political hegemon Janša will excommunicate you and try to destroy you."