Public service broadcasters are among the key institutions of modern Western Europe, and RTV Slovenia is a fundamental media institution in Slovenia. The thesis examines the reasons for journalists' departures from the news programme of TV Slovenija. A significant number of journalists and editors left RTV Slovenia in 2022, a strike of the RTV Slovenia journalists' unions started in the same year, and the main aim of the thesis was to find out how many journalists left the television news programme in 2022 and to compare the data with previous years. The departures coincided to a large extent with the appointment of the new management of the country's largest media house in 2021, so I was curious to know whether the reasons for the job changes were in any way related to the performance of the management. I was led to this reflection by media reports which spoke of pressure from the management and of a lack of journalistic autonomy. Public service media around the world have been facing various challenges for some time, but at the same time they have been synonymous with valued news programme for decades. Based on data analysis and semi-structured interviews with former journalists at the news programme, I concluded that the number of departures in 2022 was higher than in previous years, with 15% of all staff leaving the news programme last year, and 10% if career departures are taken into account. However, based on semi-structured interviews, I concluded that many journalists left for personal reasons, some cited poor working conditions as a reason, and pressure of any kind was never cited as the main reason for journalists leaving.
|