PS: New STVR General Director Presented Good Project, But Can She Carry It Out?

Bratislava, May 12 (TASR) - The project of elected general director of public-service broadcaster STVR Martina Flasikova is quite well elaborated, but the question is how she'll be able to translate the vision in the project into reality, said House culture and media committee members Zora Jaurova and Dana Kleinert (Progressive Slovakia/PS) following the Monday's hearing and election of the STVR general director. Jaurova thinks that the new director will have a hard time, pointing out that the current law gives increased powers to the STVR Council. "That director is fully dependent on the council and actually can't be fully autonomous," she said. "At this point, I have no choice but to keep my fingers crossed that she'll be able to retain as much autonomy as possible and be able to push through as much of her modernisation project as possible," she said. However, the MP also pointed to Flasikova's connection to the eReport news website. "This very much undermines everything we read in her project about independent and impartial professional journalism," she stated. Martina Flasikova has become the new general director of public broadcaster STVR. The STVR Council, which has the power to elect and dismiss the public broadcaster's head under current legislation, made the decision in a secret ballot at its meeting following the hearings of the candidates on Monday. Flasikova garnered seven votes, while acting director Igor Slanina received two votes from the council members. am/df