Arguing About the Essence of <i>Public Service</i> in Public Service Media: A Case Study of a Newsroom Conflict at Slovak RTVS

Although it is generally acknowledged that the raison d'être for public service media (PSM) to serve public, there much less agreement about what term specifically means. This contribution, using a recent newsroom conflict at Slovak broadcaster Radio and Television of Slovakia (RTVS) as case study, explores how PSM journalists managers perceive interpret essence in PSM, their interpretations differ from academic legal framework, diverse understanding can be within one newsroom, consequences this variability have functioning newsroom. It shows RTVS journalists’ managers’ shared perception closer market-failure perspective than more comprehensive democracy-centric (Donders Citation2021). They construct mainly an antithesis commercial see its value production niche programmes genres are important, although not popular. they agreed many aspects obtains, differences notion objectivity proper power distance were enough cause permanent clashes struggles, eventually contributed significant staff turnover.