Žurnal’s hard-hitting, high-quality pre-election front-page coverage.

Yesterday was the second round of mayoral elections in Slovenia. Here in Maribor, the race was won by Franc Kangler, despite a hardcore media blitz by his opponent Gregor Pivec. It was a curious race, and there’s a lot to say about it, but right now I’m interested in just one thing: the piece of shit that was the pre-election edition of the free weekly newspaper Žurnal.

I know that it’s not exactly a respected paper, but it has a high circulation (253,000 by their count) and it’s widely distributed. By my reckoning, their pre-election coverage contained four glowing stories about candidate Gregor Pivec, one “mini interview” with Franc Kangler’s wife, and a neutral one about them both. This paper should be studied in journalism school as an example of how not to be objective, how not to be a journalist, and how to disgrace an entire profession. Most of the articles are unsigned (making their authorship an interesting question) but the hack behind the rest is Katarina Pernat.

Here are the headlines from stories written about candidate Gregor Pivec:

1) Dober program zagotovilo za uspeÅ¡en razvoj Maribora¹
(A good program guarantees the successful growth of Maribor)

2) Za Pivcem stojijo strokovnjaki
(Professionals behind Pivec)

3) “Vse povem v obraz!”²
(”I say everything to people’s face!”)

4) SoviÄ? za Gregorja Pivca, Stojan Auer bi najpodprl Pivca³
[Outgoing Mayor Boris] SoviÄ? is for Gregor Pivec, and [former candidate] Stojan Auer supposedly supports Pivec

Here are the headlines from stories about candidate Franc Kangler:

1) Mini Intervju: Tanja Kangler stoji za svojim možem⁴
(Mini Interview: Tanja Kangler stands by her man)

Special Bonus Propaganda:

In the street poll on page four [Mnenja (Opinions)] four out of five people support Pivec. So much for displaying a fair, representative sample.

Finally, and perhaps crucially, here are the number of paid advertisements that appeared in the pre-election edition:

Campaign ads for Pivec: 1
Campaign ads for Kangler: 0

1. A picture of this story is what you see at the top of this page, with Mr. Pivec looking mayor-like. The front-page story, which doesn’t mention the leading candidate at all, starts like this: “BodoÄ?i župan bo potreboval moÄ?no ekipo strokovnjakov in dober strateÅ¡ki program, da bo lahko izpolnil svoje obljube. Gregor Pivec je ekipo in program že predstavl gospodarstvenikom, strokovnjakom in javnosti. S tem so njegove predvolilne odljube dobile tudi trdno in realno podlago za uresniÄ?itev.” (The future mayor will need a strong team of professionals and a good strategic program to allow the mayor to fulfill his promises. Gregor Pivec introduced his team to businessmen, professionals and the public. With that, his pre-election promises were solidly and realistically grounded.) Can you fucking believe it? I mean, seriously, can you? [back]
2. In this article, Pernat writes one introductory sentence, describing a widely circulated e-mail that criticizes Pivec, and then lets him respond for the rest of the entire story. In other words, the article is basically a ten-sentence-long quote. Pernat doesn’t mention the accusations in the e-mail. [back]
3. This story is actually newsworthy. The problem is that it doesn’t mention the fact that other parties (notably the left-of-center LDS) threw their support behind Kangler. [back]
4. This is actually pretty cunning, I think. “Standing by her man” is something the wife of an accused criminal would also do. Or at least someone who is under intense fire. The fact that the only story about Kangler is an interview with his wife also speaks volumes. [back]