The president of the Croatian Journalists’ Association (CJA), Hrvoje Zovko, on Saturday described as “scandalous and unacceptable” a statement made by the Minister of Demography and Immigration, Ivan Šipić (DP), in which he attacked a journalist from Jutarnji list and the media, claiming that the statement “painted a target” on the journalist and the journalism profession.
“The CJA condemns this statement. Minister Šipić’s statement is scandalous and unacceptable. Unfortunately, we are not surprised by it—when the prime minister, day after day, ridicules and insults our colleagues, his ministers follow suit,” Zovko said in an interview with Hina.
If Minister Šipić cannot handle public criticism, Zovko suggested he should reconsider his career. “What he did was vile. He painted a target on our colleague and the journalism profession. Now, after this, we can expect a barrage of new insults and attacks. If anything happens to our colleagues, we know who is to blame,” the CJA president stated.
He reiterated that such an “incendiary statement” is completely unacceptable and deserving of condemnation by the CJA.
In his column, Ante Tomić humorously commented on the four advisors that Šipić introduced on Thursday, with whom he will work on developing pro-natalist policies.
“Minister of Demography and Immigration Ivan Šipić has appointed four advisors, and none of them are working pro bono, out of love for the one and eternal Croatian homeland. Each will earn 1,100 euros a month, and if, in the next two years, we don’t gain at least half a million new residents, the four of them will honestly return the money. This is, of course, a joke. In a ministry that nobody sees the point of, they will only be paying these four advisors 4,400 euros…” Tomić wrote, among other things.
Šipić then responded on Facebook on Saturday, stating that he “is giving as much as he can” and that he gathered the advisors after months of discussions with “experts, associations, mayors, city officials, the Church, and families” across Croatia.
“I gather the media and openly say everything I think. Without hiding anything or hedging my bets. And I take the hits from semi-literate, paid journalists, who don’t contribute but just spit on any attempt at progress,” he wrote, calling Ante Tomić a “communist protégé” and a “trash can journalist.”
“Because he got exactly what his ‘free journalist’ rhetoric and media space deserve: a trash can. If this were the time of his ‘educated locksmith,’ responsible for the massacres of hundreds of thousands of Croats, I wonder if he would have the space for ‘free journalism’ to write such filth and spit on whatever comes to his mind,” Šipić wrote.
He also said that beneath the hat, besides the attempt to belittle the most important issue in the country, there is nothing. “So, to the ‘trash can’ journalist, I say that the day will come when what he received in the trash can will be worth more than his ‘free bravuras,'” Šipić concluded, adding, “You will not break us.”
Source: Hina, dnevnik.hr.