Global Media Journal
German Edition
Essay
Journalists as liars, servants, and sell-outs?
On the declining trust in the media in the
Czech Republic and Slovakia
Marína Urbániková
Abstract: Trust, a key ingredient for the functioning and survival of the media, has been gradually
eroding in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This essay argues that while some sources of that decline
stem from broader social and cultural factors, others can be found in the media and journalists themselves.
In both countries, the key reasons seem to be similar: commercialization and oligarchization
have given rise to a sceptical attitude towards the media and journalists and it has generated suspicion
that they act in the interests of economic and political actors rather than in the interest of the
public. In addition, the rise of “alternative” media that spreads disinformation, hoaxes, and propaganda,
together with attacks against journalists by top political representatives, further stimulate and
strengthen the public perception that journalists are biased and corrupt, and that the media cannot
be trusted. The more pronounced decline in trust observed in Slovakia can be explained by lower
institutional trust at the societal level, the suspected greater inclination of Slovak journalists towards
activism, weaker public service media and its less stable position, and a smaller market that may
make it more difficult for various social groups to find a media outlet to represent them.
Keywords: Czech Republic, distrust, journalists, media, news, oligarchization, Slovakia, scepticism,
trust
Author information:
Marína Urbániková is an assistant professor at the Department of Media Studies and Journalism and
at the Judicial Studies Institute at Masaryk University, Czech Republic. Her research interests include
the topics of gender and journalism, journalistic autonomy, journalism cultures, public service
media and its independence, the security and safety of journalists, journalism education, and public
confidence in the media and journalists. She is currently the principal investigator for the project
Rethinking the Role of Czech Public Service Media: Expectations, Challenges, and Opportunities
(2021-23), which is supported by the Czech Science Foundation. She has published in, among others,
the European Journal of Communication, Journalism Practice, and International Communication
Gazette.
For more information: https://www.muni.cz/en/people/182258-marina-urbanikova
Email: m.urbanikova@mail.muni.cz
To cite this article: Urbániková, Marína (2022). Journalists as liars, servants, and sell-outs? On
the declining trust in the media in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Global Media Journal – German
Edition, 12(2), DOI: https://doi.org/10.22032/dbt.55519
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Trust in the media, which is an essential ingredient for the functioning and survival
of that industry, has been gradually eroding in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in
recent years (European Commission, 2022a; Newman et al., 2022). According to
some surveys, the level of trust is among the lowest in the world. For example, the
2022 edition of the Reuters Institute Digital News Report states that only 34% of
Czechs and 26% of Slovaks claimed that they “trust most news most of the time”
(Newman et al., 2022), which ranks the Czech Republic 37th and Slovakia 46th out
of the 46 countries included in the report (Slovakia shares last place with the United
States). Why this acute lack of trust?
In this essay, I argue that, while some sources for the declining trust stem from
broader social and cultural processes and factors, other reasons can be found in the
media and the journalists themselves. In both countries, the key reasons seem to be
similar: commercialization and oligarchization have given rise to a sceptical attitude
towards the media and journalists and a suspicion that they act in the interests of
economic and political actors rather than in the interest of the public. In addition,
the rise of “alternative” media that spreads disinformation, hoaxes, and pro-Russian
propaganda, together with attacks against media and journalists by the top political
representatives, further stimulate and strengthen the public perception that journalists
are biased and corrupt, and that the media cannot be trusted. The more pronounced
decline in trust observed in Slovakia can be explained by the lower institutional
trust at the societal level, the suspected greater inclination of Slovak journalists
towards activism, weaker public service media and its less stable position, and
the smaller market where it may be more difficult for various social groups to find a
media outlet to represent them.
Trust in what: the overall news, the news people use, the media, or the
journalists?
Before delving deeper into the possible explanations for the low trust in the media
in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, a brief methodological note is due. Assessment
is complicated by the fact that different surveys — depending on the wording of the
questions — produce quite different findings. The results vary according to whether
respondents are asked about their overall trust in the news or their trust in the news
that they use (Newman et al., 2022), their trust in individual media types (European
Commission, 2022a), or their trust in journalists (Volek & Urbániková, 2017a). Apparently,
trust in the media, in general, is higher than trust in the news, and trust in
the news seems to be higher than trust in journalists, all of which suggests that the
public is more likely to trust impersonal institutions than their staff and products.
First, the Eurobarometer survey regularly examines people's trust in different media
types in European Union (EU) countries: the written press, radio, television, the internet,
and online social networks. Because the internet and social networks cannot
be considered standard media that produces its own content, the following analysis
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focuses only on trust in the first three media types. As depicted in Figure 1, the average
amount of trust in the written press, television, and radio in 2022 was 59% in
the Czech Republic and 50% in Slovakia. Compared to other EU countries, the Czech
Republic is well above the EU average of 51% and Slovakia is at the average (European
Commission, 2022a). In any case, the Eurobarometer results paint a less
gloomy picture. They do not suggest that public trust in the media is catastrophically
low in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, nor that the situation is significantly worse
than elsewhere in the EU.
The second source of longitudinal comparative data, the Digital News Report, which
is published annually by the Reuters Institute, examines trust in the news (Newman
et al., 2022). As shown in Figure 1, trust in the news is lower than the trust in media
in both countries, as measured in the Eurobarometer. Understandably, people have
more trust in the news that they use (i.e., 39% in the Czech Republic and 37% in
Slovakia in 2022) than in the news overall (i.e., 34% in the Czech Republic and 26%
in Slovakia in 2022). However, the difference is smaller than one might expect. This
raises the question: why, given a wide range of media offerings, do people not use
the media that they trust? For instance, people have the least trust in the tabloids,
like Nový Čas (29%; Slovakia) and Blesk (18%; Czech Republic), which are, nevertheless,
the most widely read newspapers in both countries (Median SK, 2022; Median
& STEM/MARK, 2022). Thus, people are interested in tabloid content, but they
also know it is not trustworthy quality journalism.
Third, the journalists themselves inspire even less public trust than the types of media
and the news. In this respect, only data for the Czech Republic are available, but
these show that, in 2016, only 29% of the Czech population declared that they
trusted journalists, which is a staggering drop from 47% in 2004 (Volek & Urbániková,
2017a). This suggests that institutions and organizations are perceived as
more trustworthy than the (fallible) flesh-and-blood people who work in them
(Volek & Urbániková, 2017a).
In general, it is questionable to what extent the reluctance to declare trust in surveys
is an expression of active distrust of the media, journalists, and their work, and to
what extent it is merely a manifestation of a certain scepticism and critical thinking,
and a sign of media literacy that forces us to question all the information that we
receive. In other words, in line with Cook and Gronke (2005), we should distinguish
between distrust (i.e., that the media and journalists do something wrong), mistrust
(i.e., a doubt based upon suspicion), scepticism (i.e., the unwillingness to believe
without conclusive evidence), and cynicism (i.e., contemptuous disbelief in sincerity
or nobility). When the public is warned daily about the dangers of fake news and
disinformation, and when a large part of society (89% of Czechs and 79% of Slovaks)
thinks that “the existence of news or information that misrepresent reality or is even
false” is a problem in their country (European Commission, 2022a), how could they,
in good conscience, agree with statements such as “I think you can trust most news
most of the time” (Newman et al., 2022)? Simple survey questions fail to capture
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these nuances. A question that asks whether people trust the news they consume
does not address this issue because people also consume content they do not trust
and media exposure does not always go hand in hand with media trust (Tsfati &
Cappella, 2005). Perhaps a more telling survey question would be whether respondents
are able to find at least some news source that they can trust in the current
offerings.
Regardless of the exact wording of the questions, two conclusions can be drawn from
the available surveys. Trust in the media, their products, and the producers in both
the Czech Republic and Slovakia has been gradually declining over the last 15 years.
Also, the decline is noticeably more pronounced in Slovakia than in the Czech Republic.
The remainder of this essay provides possible explanations for this develop-
ment.
Figure 1: Trust (in %) in the media and in the news in the Czech Republic and
Slovakia (2009-22)
Source: Eurobarometer 2009-22 (overall trust was calculated as a simple average of the proportion
of respondents who declared trust in the written press, television, and radio; the dataset compiled by
the European Broadcasting Union was used for data from 2009-21 – EBU, 2021; data for 2022 were
taken from Standard Eurobarometer 96 – European Commission, 2022a); Reuters Institute Digital
News Reports 2017-22 (Newman et al., 2022; Štětka, 2022; Newman et al., 2021; Newman et al.,
2020; Newman et al., 2019; Newman et al., 2018; Newman et al., 2017).
66 67 66
61
57
60
54 55 56 54 53
59 59
68 68 69
65
59 59 60
56 56 57
59
53 50
39
34
32 31
33 33
36
34
27
34 33
28
30
26
37 37
39 38
40 39
39
45 43 40 42
37
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
CZ (Trust in the written press, TV, radio) SK (Trust in the written press, TV, radio)
CZ (Trust in news overall) SK (Trust in news overall)
CZ (Trust in news people use) SK (Trust in news people use)
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Trust in the media as part of general trust in institutions
First, trust in the media, a key social institution, is, to some extent, linked to trust in
the social establishment and political institutions, such as the government, the parliament,
and the presidency (Ariely, 2015). In this respect, both the Czech Republic
and Slovakia, as former Eastern Bloc countries, have to deal with the legacy of the
past political regime (which was certainly not built on trust) and the political and
economic upheaval of the 1990s (Mishler & Rose, 2001). This cultural habit of distrusting
public institutions and fellow citizens still persists to some extent (Hájek et
al., 2020), especially when the new institutions have, at times, served the interests
of political and business leaders rather than the citizens.
In addition to the historical legacy, institutional trust (including trust in the media)
is negatively affected by political and economic shocks (Sapsford & Abbott, 2006;
Torcal, 2014). When society is hit by the consequences of political or economic crises,
people may directly or indirectly blame politicians and the “system” as a whole
(Caïs et al., 2021). There has been no shortage of exceptional situations in recent
years. Citizens have had good reasons for concern and uncertainty: the COVID-19
pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the related massive immigration, rising inflation,
skyrocketing energy prices, an unstable government in Slovakia, and high polarization
in the Czech political scene. This, in turn, affects the perception and assessment
of the whole system, including the media.
These factors result in relatively low interpersonal and institutional trust, especially
in the case of Slovakia. The level of interpersonal trust in both countries is below the
EU average and well below the average in the Western countries (36% in the Czech
Republic, 33% in Slovakia, 46% in the EU, 52% in the “old” EU member states; see
Boehnke et al., 2018). Interestingly, institutional trust, which was computed as the
average of trust in nine public institutions1 (European Commission, 2022b), is
above the EU average in the Czech Republic (58% vs. 53%) but considerably lower
than the EU average in Slovakia (a mere 40%). The higher level of interpersonal and
institutional trust in the Czech Republic compared to Slovakia goes hand in hand
with the higher level of trust that the Czech public has for the media and the news,
as described above.
Citizens’ dissatisfaction with the state of society spills over into their distrust of the
media and journalists, especially when they are seen as part of the establishment
(Ariely, 2015) and not as a force that stands for “ordinary people”. Moreover, distrust
of the media can be compounded by the distrust of experts in some segments
of the population. The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have played a significant role
here because it has led to an overall decline in institutional trust across all of the EU
members, with low trust particularly among unvaccinated people who use social media
as their preferred news source (Ahrendt et al., 2022). Restrictive measures and
1
Health and medical staff, the army, the police, regional and local public authorities, the justice,
public administration, the parliament, the government, and political parties.
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vaccination against COVID-19 have become the subject of controversy and they have
led to strong social polarisation, especially in Slovakia, where vaccination rates are
the third lowest in the EU (ECDC, 2022). In such an atmosphere, even the simple
pursuit of objectivity, which is the first commandment of professional journalism,
is sometimes perceived and interpreted as betrayal and abetting the adversary.
To summarize, the historical legacy of low institutional and interpersonal trust, coupled
with political and economic upheavals, can lead to a more cautious attitude on
the part of citizens and a reluctance to express confidence in the news and the media
because they are seen as part of the (unreliable) system. This brings us back to the
need to distinguish between scepticism and active distrust.
Attacks on journalists by populist politicians
Second, when it comes to trust in the media, politicians and other actors play a significant
role. The model that has played out in Hungary, Poland, and the US, where
politicians persistently attack the media and try to delegitimize them, has long been
applied in the Czech Republic and Slovakia as well. Moreover, these attacks often
come from the highest political offices, such as the prime minister and the president.
In the Czech Republic, examples include former president (and former prime minister)
Václav Klaus, who claimed that “journalists are the greatest enemies of humanity”
(Dolejší, 2011) and the current president (and former prime minister) Miloš
Zeman, who declared that “journalists are morons, dung and feces” (Adamek, 2015)
and lamented that “Czech journalists have not yet been exterminated” (Kopecký,
2018).
Slovak politicians do not lag behind. Robert Fico, the former three-time prime minister,
was known for his complicated relationship with journalists, calling some of
them “dirty anti-Slovak prostitutes” and a “gang of Soros pigs”, in both cases playing
on right-wing extremist positions and the latter with clear antisemitic traits. His
successor Igor Matovič continued the trend of attacking the journalists (Katuška,
2022).
There is hardly another profession against which the Czech and Slovak political
leaders have waged such a massive and concentrated attack in recent years. Although
the media condemn this pressure, it cannot be said that these statements disqualify
the politicians in the eyes of the public because those views are in line with
the current populist wave of aversion to elites, which includes journalists. Rather,
this rhetoric fuels public distrust and contempt and very likely affects the trust in
the media and journalists. As a consequence of turning the journalists into punching
bags, they become the targets of threats and attacks. In Slovakia, it culminated in
the murder of the Slovak investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée in 2018
(Urbániková & Haniková, 2022).
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Serving the commercial and political interests: commercialization and
oligarchization
Third, another source for the decline in public trust in the media can be found in the
transformation of the media market and the changing patterns of media ownership.
To start, most of the advertising revenue no longer goes to the media houses but to
digital giants like Google and Facebook (Mosco, 2019), which is a global trend. The
audience is increasingly moving into the digital space, but, at the same time, they
are only slowly getting used to the idea of paying for content online (Newman et al.,
2022), and the media is desperately trying to come up with a viable and workable
paywall system. To retain readers, listeners, and viewers, and thus advertisers and
at least some advertising revenue, some media have resorted to traditional means of
tabloidization and they are turning to the production of simple, appealing, and superficial
content — or so it seems to the public. It is tabloidism that is the most common
negative characteristic of journalists in the eyes of the Czech public: almost half
of the public is convinced that Czech journalists are too “tabloid” as opposed to “serious”
(Volek & Urbániková, 2017a). Thus, even though the public likes to consume
tabloid content (the daily tabloid, Blesk, is continuously the most widely read newspaper
in the Czech Republic; see Median & STEM/MARK, 2022), they do not value
this type of journalism.
Oligarchization is another significant trend that has changed the Czech and Slovak
media scene and, consequently, the level of public trust (Štětka et al., 2021). After
many years when foreign owners owned the leading media organizations, they have
gradually fallen back into the hands of domestic elites (Štětka, 2012). Currently, the
vast majority of the key Czech and Slovak media outlets are in the hands of local
businessmen (they are owned by, e.g., PPF Group that belongs to the late Czech
businessman Petr Kellner; Agrofert which is indirectly controlled by the Czech businessman
and ex-prime minister Andrej Babiš; Czech Media Invest, J&T Group, and
Penta Group which belong to groups of Czech and Slovak businessmen; Economia
which belongs to the Czech businessman Zdeněk Bakala; Synot Investment Limited
which belongs to the Czech businessmen Ivo Valenta and Michal Voráček; and
Grafobal Group which belongs to the Slovak businessman Ivan Kmotrík).
The local owners are usually major domestic economic and, in some cases, political
players. Given the low profitability of the media sector, it seems likely that, for at
least some of them, the purchase was motivated by the need to have a tool to influence
public opinion and promote their interests. For instance, in 2015, the co-owner
of the Penta Group admitted in an interview that the group began to buy Slovak
media in bulk in order to make it more difficult for others “to attack them irrationally”
and that their media outlets serve as “a nuclear briefcase” (Mikušovič, 2015)
for use in extreme cases.
Furthermore, political media ownership is not uncommon. For example, ex-Czech
prime minister Andrej Babiš indirectly controls, among other media outlets, two of
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the five key quality daily newspapers. Slovak parliament speaker Boris Kollár owns
two of the four most listened-to radio stations. Thus, a sceptical attitude or outright
distrust about the media owned by those businessmen and politicians cannot be interpreted
so much as an expression of resentment towards the elites or the idealization
of foreign owners, but rather as a rational assessment of the situation where the
primary motivation for media ownership is not profit (as was usual in the case of
foreign owners), but power and influence. It is possible that this sceptical and cautious
attitude then extends to the entire media market.
Therefore, commercialization and oligarchization further weakens public trust,
which expects journalists, above all, to be independent and impartial. According to
the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2022, less than a fifth of Czechs and Slovaks
think that the media in their country are independent of undue political or government
influence (i.e., 17% in the Czech Republic, 16% in Slovakia) and of undue
business or commercial influence (i.e., 18% and 15%, respectively) (Newman et al.,
2022). The perceived lack of independence is a crucial issue according to the Eurobarometer
survey, too. Only 31% of Czechs and 38% of Slovaks believe that the media
in their country provide information that is free from political or commercial
pressure, which is much lower than the share of those who believe that the national
media provide trustworthy information (62% and 52%, respectively) and that they
provide diverse views and opinions (74% and 66%, respectively) (European Commission,
2022a). In addition, a third of the Czech public believes that journalists are
corrupt and dependent (Volek & Urbániková, 2017a). In summary, it appears that
perceived venality and the lack of independence are the main factors that undermine
public trust in the Czech and Slovak media.
Journalists as critics or spokespersons for the powerful?
Fourth, the degree of public trust lies largely in the hands of the media and the journalists
themselves (Livio & Cohen, 2018). After all, according to institutional theories,
trust is, at least to some extent, rationally based, and depends on citizens' evaluations
of the institutional performance (Mishler & Rose, 2001). One of the significant
factors of public trust is the extent to which the media enables citizens to talk
back to power and hold the state accountable (Bakir & Barlow, 2007; Roudakova,
2017). Even though there is no shortage of quality media and journalists in the Czech
Republic and Slovakia who do their best to fulfil their watchdog role, the segments
of the society who perceive the social system as unfair presumably see the media and
journalists as part of the elite and as promoters and defenders of the system rather
than as advocates for the weak and vulnerable. This assumption is supported by the
results of a Czech survey that showed that people with the lowest (i.e., primary) education
and those who are unemployed or studying (i.e., typically without income)
have the lowest trust in journalists (Volek & Urbániková, 2017b).
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The perception of journalists as part of the establishment may be related to their
historical role as regime builders during the Communist era (Sztompka, 2000), both
in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The firmly rooted distrust of the media and
journalists is encapsulated in the old Czech folk saying “he/she lies as if he/she were
printing the words” ("lže jako když tiskne") and in the even more telling expression
that refers to the pre-1989 communist newspaper Rudé Právo (The Red Justice):
“he/she lies like the Red Justice prints articles” ("lže jako když Rudé Právo tiskne").
In addition, at least in the Czech case (as there is no data on Slovakia in this respect),
the socio-demographic structure of the journalism community and the considerable
homogeneity of the political values on the part of journalists may also be a source
for the feeling of part of the society that the media do not stand on their side (Volek
& Urbániková, 2017b). Czech journalism is dominated by educated men in the
younger to middle age range. On the liberalism-conservatism scale, most journalists
are self-proclaimed liberals (70%), and on the left-right scale, most of them have a
right-wing (45%) or centrist (41%) political orientation (Volek & Urbániková,
2017a).2 Low diversity in newsrooms may lead to some topics and perspectives that
are important to groups other than white liberal right-wing men (e.g., people with
left-wing political orientations, women, Roma) not receiving the attention they deserve.
To some extent, this shortcoming may be mitigated by specialized and alternative
media (e.g., the left-wing online newspapers Deník Alarm and Deník Referendum;
the news server Romea.cz, which focuses on the Romani minority). Still,
although alternative media activities seem to be expanding in recent years, television
remains the main source of information for as much as three-quarters of Czechs
and Slovaks (European Parliament, 2022) — and mainstream channels dominate in
both countries (the main media type for alternative media are online platforms). In
addition, more than a third of Czechs do not consume news at all, or only minimally,
because they are simply not interested (NFNZ, 2021a). However, there is a lack of
data for a deeper analysis of the media consumption patterns of individual social
groups and their media preferences.
Also, unlike traditional professions, journalism is an occupation that is halfway between
a craft and a full-fledged profession (Tunstall, 1971), and there is no consensus
for clear criteria by which good and bad journalism should be judged and distinguished.
Although this is true for journalism in general, the lack of a consensus for
the key professional norms and values is even more flagrant in the Czech Republic
and Slovakia than, for instance, in Western countries, because the perception of the
journalistic roles and the mission has changed several times in the 20th Century,
hand in hand with political-regime changes (Urbániková & Volek, 2018).
2
In the Czech context the right-left axis refers more to the economic dimension (e.g., ideas about the
appropriate level of redistribution of wealth and the size of the state) and the conservatism-liberalism
axis refers more to the social and cultural dimension (e.g., LGBT+ rights, climate change, immigration,
the right to abortion).
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As a result, in a regular Czech survey of occupational prestige (CVVM, 2019) that
listed 24 professions, journalists were fourth from the bottom (behind carpenters,
construction workers, and shop assistants). Here, too, it is evident that the public
thinks less of journalists, as their perceived prestige has fallen by almost a third since
2004. Only MPs have seen a similar drop, which again suggests that these trends
are manifested by a broader public scepticism and distrust for those they regard as
part of the establishment. In contrast, the prestige of other professions has been
stabled over the long term.
The rise of disinformation media as an alternative to mainstream media
The impression that journalists and media fulfil their owner’s assignments and
therefore cannot be trusted is further reinforced by the rise of “alternative” media,
which spreads disinformation, hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and propaganda. Typically,
they disseminate anti-immigration, islamophobic, and anti-EU content, and
the presented views align with the extreme right and pro-Russian actors3 (Štětka et
al., 2021). They often have an unclear ownership structure and funding, they do not
follow the basic rules of standard journalism, and, in turn, they accuse the mainstream
media of being sell-outs and of hiding important information from people.
Disinformation is widespread both in the Czech Republic and Slovakia; this has become
even more evident during the COVID-19 pandemic and after the outbreak of
war in Ukraine. For instance, according to the GLOBSEC report (2021), more than
a quarter of Czechs and Slovaks believe that “the COVID-19 pandemic is a planned
operation by the hidden forces/elites to control the population” and over a third of
respondents in both countries agreed that “COVID-19 is fake to manipulate the population”.
In the Czech Republic, roughly every sixth person believes that “the coronavirus
was artificially created in laboratories thanks to funding from Bill Gates”
and that “5G signal transmitters can have a significant negative impact on human
health” (NFNZ, 2021b). More than half of the population reportedly saw this information
in the media (NFNZ, 2021b).
Due to the increased activity of disinformation websites and the lack of media literacy,
some people find it challenging to evaluate quality journalism and reliable
sources of information. While for some parts of the audience, this can only lead to
scepticism (“it's hard to tell where the truth lies”), for others, it can lead to active
distrust (“the mainstream media is lying to us”). When they do not find disinformation
narratives in mainstream media, they may succumb to the belief that, as a
part of a conspiracy against ordinary citizens, the mainstream media are not telling
the public the whole story.
3
For instance, in 2022, one of the authors who contributed to the disinformation outlet Hlavné
Správy — which is one of the most popular “alternative” media sources in Slovakia — was, along with
others, arrested and charged for taking bribes and conducting espionage for Russia (Francelová,
2022).
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How to explain the differences between the Czech Republic and Slo-
vakia?
Finally, the different level of trust in the media and the news in the Czech Republic
and Slovakia, which are two culturally and geographically close countries with a
shared history, needs some analysis. As part of a tentative explanation, there are at
least four reasons that the trust is higher in the Czech Republic.
First, as mentioned above, the level of interpersonal and, especially, institutional
trust is significantly higher in the Czech Republic (European Commission, 2022b;
Boehnke et al., 2018), which is probably due to better functioning and more reliable
institutions, less dramatic political developments since 1989, and a higher standard
of living. On the contrary, Slovakia has been plagued by corruption, state capture,
inequality before the law, and links between organized crime and political elites, as
was revealed after the murder of the investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée
in 2018. That killing led to mass anti-government protests and the subsequent
resignation of the long-time prime minister Robert Fico. Under the current government,
the Slovak authorities have put dozens of high-ranking officials from the judiciary
and the police on trial in an attempt to “clean out the house” (Hutt, 2022).
Still, the government itself is deeply unpopular due to internal contradictions that
prevent the proper governance of the country (the share of people who trust the government
is currently the second lowest in the EU; see European Commission,
2022b). Thus, Slovak citizens have more reasons to distrust the system and social
institutions, which probably spill over into distrust of the media and the journalists
as part of the establishment.
Also, anecdotal observations suggest that Slovak journalists may have a greater tendency
to be activists, to take sides, and even to go beyond the boundaries of journalism4.
The desire to be on the “good side” and indicate to the audience what the good
side is may be due to the more turbulent political developments described above. If
this is indeed the case (again, there is no systematic data in this respect), it could be
perceived by the public as a lack of objectivity and independence and further weaken
their trust in the media and journalists.
In addition, another factor that leads to greater trust in the media and journalists in
the Czech Republic may be the better functioning of the public service media. In
both countries, the public service media (television and radio stations, including
online outlets) are the most trusted news sources. However, 50% of Czech citizens
trust the public service media and this share is almost ten percentage points lower
in Slovakia (41%; European Parliament, 2022). This difference is again not surprising,
as the Slovak public service media has long faced serious concerns about its
4
See the case of Peter Tóth, a former Slovak star journalist and then the head of counterintelligence
at the Slovak Intelligence Service, who was later involved in the illegal surveillance of Ján Kuciak and
other journalists (Cuprik et al., 2020).
Vol.12No.2Autumn/Winter 2022 www.globalmediajournal.de
12
independence and underfunding (Urbániková, 2021). This also means that the pillar
on which Slovak citizens could base their trust in the media is simply less solid.
Finally, market size and structure may also be part of the explanation. The Czech
Republic has twice the population of Slovakia, and its media sector is larger and
richer, so it is possible that various social groups can more easily choose a media
outlet that represents them and that they can trust.
Whatever the reasons and causes for the low trust that Czech and Slovak citizens
have for the media, media organizations, and journalists, both countries have a long
and challenging road ahead if they want to regain and strengthen it.
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