Memorial to murdered Slovakian journalists, Ján Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová, 10 March 2018. Wikicommons/ Ing.Mgr.Jozef Kotulič. Some rights reserved.Dear friends of freedom of the press, many of you are coming from countries where the otherwise democratic, pluralistic media is burdened by novel dangers, such as manipulative fake news, the fragmentation of the public through social media, the monopolistic harnessing of advertisement revenues by the big-data companies, and, as a result, a further weakening of the legacy media.
Now, your speaker tonight is envying you — and at the same time he is praising your wisdom to have come with your award ceremony to one of the countries of Europe already taken over by a higher stage of despoilment.
Your precious prizes honouring quality journalism are truly meaningful in a country which is, by now, beyond the mere spreading of politically motivated fake news. Instead, we have a dominating fake media, sustained by the government from taxpayer money. In short, welcome to the new propaganda state inside Europe, donning a quasi-democratic and quasi-market-economy camouflage.
