A half-minute of Hitler and a half-minute of Stalin
On 20th February, the Institute for Christian Democratic Politics and Hanns Seidel Foundation organized a debate with Hana Marvanová, Jaromír Volek and Karel Hvížďala on the topic of publicly-owned media.
Hana Marvanová, a member of Freedom to media! Platform finds current laws on media insufficient as she lacks effective safety measures that can prevent politicians from interfering with public media. At the same time, she says no law is powerful enough to secure democratic development and it depends solely on politicians. However, she considers a new proposal on public media a good step forward. Journalist Karel Hvížďala is not enthusiastic about the proposal as he states that both the proposal and the current law enable politicians to manipulate public media.
The most time the guests debated the way members of Český rozhlas (Czech public radio broadcaster) and Česká televize (Czech public TV) councils are appointed. Helena Marvanová backed the proposal and referred to the way it is done in Germany where are representatives of NGO involved in the process. Karel Hvížďala disagreed with the argument because under the proposal there should be representatives of 22 NGOs involved but in Germany up to 77 organisations can appoint their representatives
During the debate sociologist Jaromír Volek pointed out that in the Czech Republic public loses its faith in public media and he finds it alarming that 25 years after Velvet revolution people often consider them state media instead of public. „For 25 years we failed to explain to the public that there is something like “public sphere” or “public interest“.
The guests also discussed balance in the media. The all agreed that recently the situation deteriorated as the media when when to be balanced enables obscure personas to speak even though these people have nothing to say or even lie.
The discussion was hosted by Petr Schwarz.
Throughout the entire evening the guests and visitors enjoyed music by the Adams Emily duo.