The National Assembly passed the disputed changes to the media act. The government says that the law will promote media pluralism, a claim that the opposition disputes. The amendments deal with many issues but only a few are disputable, most notably the significantly expanded right of stakeholders to demand the publication of corrections, and the creation of a fund for the promotion of pluralism.
The idea of the fund was opposed the whole time by the opposition, which fears the government will distribute the money to media outlets it views as friendly. Meanwhile, the opposition as well as the media also criticised the provision regarding corrections, saying that it encroaches on editorial policy.
The law was passed in spite of a eleventh-hour call by President Janez Drnovsek to the lawmakers to scrap the document. But Drnovsek did not share the concerns of the opposition, instead he feels the current provision on pornography and violence was not strict enough and thus not in line with the EU television without frontiers directive. Instead of a blanket ban on such material, Article 84 allows it to be screened on encoded programmes. In Drnovsek's view this is contrary to European regulations.
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