Despite election defeat, Babiš’s influence over the media still…

Despite election defeat, Babiš’s influence over the media still matters (FORUM 24)

After Czech election result, political influence over the media remains a major problem

Johana Hovorková, editor-in-chief, FORUM 24

This piece is published in collaboration with FORUM 24 as part of a content series on threats to independent media in Central Europe. Read more

On October 8 and 9, the Czech Republic held elections to the Chamber of Deputies, the lower chamber of parliament. A coalition of the so-called traditional parties named SPOLU (United) clinched a narrow victory over the ANO movement of now former prime minister Andrej Babiš – but despite their victory effectively ousting the oligarch, the political contest was not and is not fair. Candidates face unequal conditions and this will continue to be the case in the municipal and presidential elections ahead.

The former prime minister Babiš, through his trust funds, owns media companies which control a third of the Czech market. His Agrofert corporation employs tens of thousands of people and places a considerable number of ads in the media it does not own. Thus, it is hardly to be expected that the media will dare to be critical of him.

The Czech Republic does have the Office for the Supervision of Political Parties and Political Movements, whose task is to monitor compliance with the 90 million CZK spending limit for campaigns. Unfortunately and despite repeated inquiries and warnings from journalists and democratic politicians, it does not consider the pieces in the media owned by Babiš´s publishing houses as campaign spending, even though they are often open PR or smear campaigns against his adversaries. In response to FORUM 24´s question, the office explained it considered them opinion pieces like any other.

In the same fashion, the public Czech TV and Czech Radio regularly invited—and they still do—editors from the Agrofert-owned Mafra publishing house to their shows to comment on politics and often on topics exclusively related to the prime minister, presenting them as “unbiased” commentators. This practice has not changed so far and the audience is not provided with information about whose interests these journalists represent.

You know how I am

The daily papers MF Dnes and Lidové noviny, also owned by Agrofert, published obsequious interviews with ministers from ANO before the elections. This opportunity was unavailable to any other representative of the opposition parties. Furthermore, Andrej Babiš owns a whole range of tabloid and lifestyle media.

These are excerpts from a tabloid weekly Rytmus života, which claims readership of 370 thousand per issue. One of the September issues boasted a double page piece about Babiš and his wife Monika with phrases like these:

“The kind face of Andre Babiš only changes when somebody fails to keep their word” and “What helps one act calmly is doing things in line with one´s conscience”.

This is the first question: “Why did you enter politics? What was your reason for it?” And this is the prime minister´s answer: “You know how I am. I am not indifferent to what is going around me and never have been…”

Babiš´s media also systematically suppressed scandals which involved the former prime minister. These included for example the poisoning of the Bečva river as a consequence of a chemical leak which had killed fish. An Investigation conducted by independent media points to the possibility the culprit was chemical producer DEZA from the Agrofert corporation. The papers owned by the corporation virtually failed to mention that.

These outlets also devoted little coverage to the facthat Andrej Babiš´s son returned to the Czech Republic, where he was able to give his testimony to the local police after many years. He claims to have been used in the so-called Čapí hnízdo scheme, for which his father is being prosecuted. The crux of the matter is a 50 million subsidy earmarked for small and midsized companies. Holding Agrofert got this money from the EU illegally and Babiš claimed that Čapí hnízdo is just a small company which has nothing to do with his imperium.

Given ANO´s dominant position over their junior cabinet partner ČSSD (Social Democrats), it was also impossible to ask members of the cabinet difficult questions. At the beginning of 2020, FORUM 24 was refused a permit to attend the press conferences held regularly at the Cabinet Office and this policy was not altered even during the covid 19 pandemic when they were held online and there were no grounds for limiting the number of attending journalists.

The inequality is further proven by FORUM 24´s findings based on the analysis of publicly available data from Datlab. The Mafra publishing house was awarded ad contracts worth 140 million CZK between 2018 and 2020. The list of advertisers includes ministries, regional government, but also state owned cultural institutions. None of the more critical media outlets received even a fraction of this amount despite the fact that their reach is not significantly lower and in some cases is even higher than that of the media selected for the campaigns, such as MF DNES and Lidové noviny papers.

The Czech media environment is severely skewed. Given the range of Andre Babiš´s business interests, virtually no industry or field remains unaffected. From food production, through urea production, underwear retail, running fertility treatment clinics to media. No other Czech citizen, let alone a politician, can compete with him in this. No other political party has unlimited resources for its campaign and no other politician employs journalists.

Exit strategy

The October elections have demonstrated that not even Andrej Babiš´s hegemony is all-powerful. The democratic parties successfully formed two coalition blocs to form a government. There will certainly be many things one can criticize this cabinet for, but the game will be played on a democratic playing field, something which was almost lost in previous years.

One of the things that helped the representatives of independent media and civil society in the previous term was international pressure. Two significant declarations of the EU Parliament were ratified, the EU Parliament conducted a fact-finding mission to the Czech Republic and international journalist institutions also expressed their concern over, among other things, the restrictions of cabinet press conference admissions. That is very important, because otherwise, there tends to be a widespread feeling that outside Poland and Hungary, no serious challenges to press freedom exist in the EU. But they do in Czechia.

Soon Czechs will be voting for a new president, who does not have the deciding power, but his or her role is important nonetheless since he or she can push the limits of the Constitution as demonstrated by Miloš Zeman. He refused to to appoint a minister on the proposal of the Prime Minister due to differing views although it is his duty.

Andrej Babiš has already started preparing for the election. Regardless of who will face him in the popular election, we know that just as in the parliamentary elections, the playing field will not be level. Babiš´s candidacy will be openly supported by a third of the media (the ones he owns) and at least another third will give him a lot of uncritical coverage because of Agrofert´s ads (this third includes for-profit TV Nova and TV Prima).

Is it possible to say the election is fair under such conditions? Will citizens be able to decide based on all the information which could and should be available to them? Hardly. It is necessary to keep drawing attention to this situation both in the Czech Republic itself and abroad.

This piece is part of a content series on threats to independent media in Central Europe in collaboration with leading independent media in the region. Read more.

First published on IPI's website

This article was published as part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and Candidate Countries.

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After Czech elections, new push for public media independence…

After Czech elections, new push for public media independence (HlídacíPes)

Vojtěch Berger, HlidaciPes.org

The nationalization of the Czech Television and the Czech Radio has not taken place yet. On the contrary, they are to receive a “vaccine” against political pressures, writes HlidaciPes.org.

Back in September, just before the parliamentary elections, then-Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš attacked Czech Television for allegedly “dividing society” during the pandemic. The far-right SPD movement spoke openly about its plan to nationalize both Czech Television and Czech Radio. However, after the elections, in which Babiš lost and the radical populists remained behind their own expectations, everything is (somewhat unexpectedly) different. After many years, there is a chance to cut the public media as much as possible from political influence.

MPs could get draft amendments to the acts on Czech Television and Czech Radio to be examined and scrutinized in the coming months. Senator David Smoljak is involved in their drafting, along with the Endowment for Independent Journalism and a non-profit organisation, Reconstruction of the State. The changes in the acts concern, in particular, how media councils, which in the Czech Republic serve as a “buffer” between political power and editorial independence of public-service media, are formed and elected.

“Firstly, they should strengthen the diversity of the Council, so that it is not elected by only one chamber of the Parliament, which has been the case so far, and thus it is not absolutely dependent on the current winner of the election. There is an emphasis on the competence of the councillors and on the reviewability of their decisions,” Smoljak lists the main objectives of the acts.

Smoljak spoke about the preparations for the amendments last year, but he assumed that the Parliament, in its then composition, would not approve such changes. The past year and a half showed the weaknesses of the current system of nominating and electing the members of the media councils. This is true for both the television and radio councils.

A significant number of the Czech Television Council members have been replaced in the last two years when, after last year’s election of six new members, another five out of a total of fifteen were to follow this year. The nominations of candidates, as well as the selection of the finalists, often noticeably correlated with the parliamentary voting alliance of the ruling ANO movement, the far-right SPD and the Communists.

This alliance often selected candidates without the necessary expertise, but with an openly hostile attitude towards, for example, the management of Czech Television. In the Television Council in particular, this led to the Council meetings becoming hours-long skirmishes between some of the councillors and the Director General, instead of the councillors addressing the control agenda that appertains to the Council members.

It was precisely because of the doubts about the competence of the candidates supported by the ANO government that this spring, the then-parliamentary opposition decided to block the election of four new members of the TV Council by obstructions, resulting in its being incomplete for several months.

Elections also interfered in the staffing of the media councils this year when some councillors themselves decided to run for Parliament. One of the councillors resigned because of this, while another councillor was removed. The act foresees that councillors are not to work for the benefit of any political party. However, the resignation/removal of two councillors has contributed to the vacancies in both of the councils, namely in a situation whereby the Parliament has been unable to elect new councils members due to the obstructions and the upcoming elections.

The aforementioned amendments to the Czech Television and Czech Radio acts therefore prefer to expressly ban councillors from running for political office. However, they bring about an even more fundamental change elsewhere: After twenty years, the acts change the very manner in which media councillors are recruited in the Czech Republic and who is allowed to nominate them and who elects them.

While today any social organization or association – even an absolutely marginal one or one that was founded briefly before the nomination – can send a candidate to the council, the amendment stipulates that the nominating organization would have to have at least a decade-long tradition. They would also have to have been active for a long time in one of an exhaustive list of fields, such as, in addition to the media, culture, trade unions, education, science and protection of human rights. According to the authors of the act, this is a safeguard to ensure that “only active entities, and not ‘shell companies’, nominate the candidates”.

The amendment also sets a minimum threshold of expertise for councillors themselves. They should have experience holding a senior position in public administration or a private company and be knowledgeable in fields such as economics, law or finance or management and, of course, the media.

“There was no political support for the German form of the act,” Senator Smoljak said on the examination and scrutiny of the amendment so far, referring to the way media councils are formed in Germany. What is common there is an enumeration of specific social organizations that are allowed to nominate candidates to the councils, for example churches or trade unions.

Another major change is the election of television and radio councillors, which is now entirely in the hands of the Chamber of Deputies. Under the new arrangements, half of the councillors would be chosen by the Chamber of Deputies and half by the Senate at each election. At the same time, the number of councillors would be reduced to 12 for the television council and to six for the radio council.

However, according to David Smoljak, this would also mean building both councils on a completely new basis. In other words: removing the existing councils, with their current members. “My view is, and not everyone agrees, that when this act comes into force, the existing council should end and a new one should be created because it is difficult to combine that,” Smoljak confirms.

But even if the media acts arrive to the Chamber of Deputies soon, it will probably take many months before the Chamber of Deputies discusses them. The aforementioned vacant positions on the Council of the Czech Television and one position on the Council of the Czech Radio will have to be filled much earlier. And even that could be a problem.

When the election committee of the Chamber of Deputies selected the 12 finalists – candidates for the Television Council – in the spring, some media experts failed to be selected, while open critics of the current management of the Czech Television got the green light. The then-opposition, which became the government majority after the October elections, resorted to the aforementioned obstructions and prevented the election.

The option now is for MPs to start the whole election once again. “Now the election committee has a new composition and the same applies to the whole Chamber of Deputies, so the process will have to be done again,” says Senator Smoljak. Petr Gazdík, the deputy chair of the STAN movement and a member of the election committee in the previous Chamber of Deputies, feels the same way: “In my opinion, nominations and selection should start from the beginning.”

However, representatives of the ANO movement, which led the election committee for the past eight years, disagree. “I don’t like it, but I can’t do anything about it, I have to respect it. I’m curious to see how the former ‘democratic opposition’ will behave now. Whether they outvote us by force and push through their 12 members in the committee,” said Martin Kolovratník, a deputy and member of the committee for ANO.

“In addition to the fact that it’s not all that fair, it also involves a risk that the same obstructions may occur which would replicate the previous obstructions. Looking at it this way, the council is actually unelectable forever,” said another ANO MP, Patrik Nacher, criticizing the announcement of new elections for the television council.

The amendments to the act on Czech Television and the act on Czech Radio, however, envisage other significant changes. Not only the decisions of the councillors themselves, but also their election or dismissal by the Parliament should be subject to judicial review. The review would be carried out by the Supreme Administrative Court.

In addition, the acts also address the issue of sustainable funding of Czech Television and Czech Radio. The Act on radio and television license fees proposes to insert a procedure for adjustment of fees so that they are automatically increased on a regular basis by the current inflation rate announced by the Czech National Bank for a specific calendar year.

The draft act is now undergoing final examination and Senator Smoljak claims that public service media “have priority”. Whether this will remain the case in light of all the gigantic problems awaiting the new government – from COVID-19 and the national debt to expensive energy – remains to be seen in the coming months.

This piece is part of a content series on threats to independent media in Central Europe in collaboration with leading independent media in the region. Read more.

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IPI condemns exclusion of journalists during Babiš-Orbán press conference

Several Czech and foreign journalists blacklisted and denied entry to prime ministers’ joint press conference.

The IPI global network today joins its Czech National Committee and the Endowment Fund for Independent Journalism (NFNZ) in condemning the discriminatory exclusion of certain foreign and domestic journalists from a joint press conference held by the prime ministers of Hungary and the Czech Republic.

On Wednesday, September 29, journalists from various European and Czech media were denied admittance to an afternoon press briefing by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary and Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš in the Czech city of Ústí nad Labemof, which focused on defence, migration and the coronavirus pandemic.

Among those denied entry were Jean-Baptiste Chastand and Magdalena Sodomková from French daily Le Monde, Martin Nejezchleba from the German weekly Die Zeit, and journalists from the German regional public broadcaster MDR and the Czech news websites Seznam Zprávy and Investigace.cz. Other investigative and freelance journalists were also barred.

The press department of the office of the government said the decision was taken due to capacity constraints. However, images of a list of reporters who had applied to attend with some names highlighted in red were circulated on social media. Those barred applied for accreditation well in advance. According to a correspondent for Czech Radio, there was ample space in the event hall.

“IPI strongly opposes this unnecessary obstruction of free journalistic work and condemns the discriminatory policy of barring journalists from certain media from attending press conferences”, IPI Deputy Director Scott Griffen said. “Worryingly, this is a tactic we see used all too often by the governments of both Orbán and Babiš, and across the Visegrad region, to side-line critical press and shield politicians and public officials from challenging questions.

“While independent and critical journalists in Hungary have been routinely denied access to publicly held information without explanation and denied accreditation for official events for years, similar incidents have recently been on the rise in the Czech Republic. We urge both prime ministers and their governments to respect press freedom by providing fair and equal access and allowing journalists to carry out their work free from arbitrary obstruction and restrictions.”

Last year, IPI and the partner organisation of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) sent an open letter to the government of the Czech Republic raising concerns about its side-lining of critical media during similar press conferences.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, journalists from certain media outlets, including Forum 24, were repeatedly denied accreditation and barred from attending online government press conferences or questioning officials on their handling of the health crisis.

In May 2021, the head of the Office of the President of the Czech Republic, Vratislav Mynář, announced the office would stop providing information to several media outlets, including Respekt, Seznam Zprávy, Deník N, Czech Television (CT) staff working for 168 hours and other reporters from the public television.

First published on IPI's website