There is a time and place to be critical of a political leader if you are a news organization. However, the time to be critical of such a person is most definitely NOT just hours after an assassination attempt in which such a person lies in a hospital in critical condition from multiple bullet wounds. And yet the BBC, with the soul of a ghoul, went ahead on Wednesday and did just that hours after the Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico was shot multiple times.
BBC Prague correspondent Rob Cameron somehow thought the very day of Fico being the gravely wounded victim of an assassination attempt would be a good time to write up this hit piece, "How Robert Fico rose to dominate Slovak politics."
First came the smear in Cameron's story followed by a medical description of the one he just smeared just a sentence earlier.
Robert Fico's ability to reinvent himself has kept him at the top of Slovakia’s politics despite repeated scandals.
Now surgeons are battling to save his life after an assassination attempt that followed a government meeting in a small town.
Class act, Rob. And true to form, Cameron reverted immediately to smear mode the very sentence after revealing his life threatening situation in the hospital.
His most recent fall from grace was in 2018, when mass protests forced his resignation in the wake of the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée.
What followed in the rest of the article was a cascade of slams directed at Fico fighting for his life in the hospital:
During the six months he has been in office this time, he and his coalition allies have taken a sledgehammer to Slovakia’s institutions.
Reform of the criminal justice system included abolition of the Special Prosecutor’s Office, set up 20 years ago to investigation serious crime and corruption.
...The national broadcaster – RTVS – is to be shut down in June and replaced with a new body with a new director.
Mr Fico says RTVS cannot be objective as it is in permanent conflict with his government, and this ‘unsustainable’ situation can only be rectified by replacing it.
Observers – including the opposition, the European Commission and the European Broadcasting Union – have warned the move would be a blow to media freedom in Slovakia.
"Public broadcasters" don't object when European governments dismantle "far-right public media," as NPR lauded Poland for well, "taking a sledgehammer" to the critical public broadcaster there.
...However if 59-year-old political veteran Mr Fico pulls through, he will likely draw new strength from this attempt on his life.
Amid the calls for calm and an end to the hateful rhetoric, his closest political allies are already laying the blame squarely on the liberal opposition and the media.
One coalition ally – deputy prime minister Andrej Danko – said the country was heading for "political war".
The political temperature has certainly risen in Slovakia since he formed what is his fourth administration in October.
Okay, BBC, we get that you have a great deal of antipathy towards Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, who doesn't want to aid Ukraine. But on the very day of an assassination attempt upon him which left him critically wounded in a hospital, is it too much to expect you to give your hate a rest?
