🇸🇰 SME

About SME

SME, a leading liberal daily in Slovakia, is published by Petit Press a.s. In 2014, the investment group Penta, implicated in a major corruption scandal, acquired shares, leading to the resignation of the editor-in-chief and half of the editorial staff. Penta later sold its shares to Petit Press in 2021.

SME is identified as a liberal daily and has historically served as a mouthpiece for the opposition against governments like those of Vladimír Mečiar and Robert Fico. The outlet experienced significant editorial upheaval in 2014 when the investment group Penta, linked to a corruption scandal, became a co-owner, prompting a mass resignation of journalists who then founded a new independent newspaper, Denník N. While Slovakia generally has a free press, it faces growing political pressures, and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) notes that both public and privately owned media remain vulnerable to external interests. The murder of journalist Ján Kuciak in 2018 highlighted media vulnerability, and Prime Minister Robert Fico has been listed as a 'press freedom predator' by RSF for fostering a hostile environment for journalists.