Ljubljana - Uroš Urbanija, the director of the TV arm of RTV Slovenija, has decided to cancel the subscription for Mladina over an editorial that criticises staffing at the public broadcaster. The editor-in-chief of Mladina retorted that by attacking the weekly, Urbanija was trying to cover up what was going on at TV Slovenija.

RTV Slovenija said in a press release on Wednesday that business cooperation with Mladina would be terminated over the latest editorial in the weekly, published last Friday, based on a decision of the college of the director of TV Slovenija.

It added that the RTV Slovenija leadership had assessed that the latest editorial by Mladina editor-in-chief Grega Repovž "has stepped over the boundary of cultured and professional expression of personal opinion."

The press release also says that the public broadcaster condemned any attacks, hate speech and inappropriate verbal confrontation and that its management of RTVS would examine the possibilities of seeking legal remedies.

Among other things, Repovž wrote that if RTV Slovenija wanted to regain its viewers and listeners's trust lost in the attacks by the Democratic Party (SDS) over the years, it will have to get rid of the journalists that he labelled as "SDS warriors".

He added that RTV Slovenija will have to carry out a purge and that "these SDS warriors ... will have to lose their jobs" or else there will be no normalisation, and that a new leadership should treat the developments over the past two years as criminal acts.

Repovž told the STA that business cooperation had already been terminated by RTV Slovenija director general Andrej Grah Whatmough at the beginning of the year, when he did not extend an contract to advertise Mladina on Radio Slovenija.

"It was a fully ... political move, as RTV Slovenija gave up on EUR 6,000 that Mladina was paying for advertisements. So there is no business cooperation between us, it was already terminated during the SDS-led government, to the detriment of RTV Slovenija, not Mladina," he added.

Repovž thus labelled Urbanija's announcement of termination of business cooperation as a lie. "If Urbanija has announced the cancellation of subscription for 20 copies of Mladina, he should be told that this is not business cooperation, but merely subscription."

He added that the weekly's job was to reveal "manipulators like [Urbanija]", and that the former director of the Government Communication Office (UKOM) wanted to cover up what was going on at Televizija Slovenija by attacking Mladina.