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Government has no place in media affairs


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April 23rd, 2008 issue

These are tough times to be in the newspaper business. As more publishing (and advertising) moves online, print publications are being squeezed, forcing staff cuts and other economies that ultimately affect the quality of the product. In France, Le Monde employees have been staging protests against a pending move to lay off fully one-quarter of the editorial staff.

Newspapers in former Eastern bloc countries face another challenge in trying to establish and preserve freedom of the press. In Slovenia, journalists have been resigning over what they contend is onerous government intrusion in their work. And, in Slovakia, a restrictive new law threatens to handcuff reporters and editors.
This paper stands in solidarity with our Slovak colleagues protesting the law. It is our belief that a free press is critical to the proper functioning of a democratic society, and the government has no place in telling newspapers how to run their business.
At first blush, the Slovak law seems reasonable. The subjects of stories, particularly controversial stories, should have proper representation and a right of response. This is Journalism 101: If you criticize someone or portray him in a negative light, you must give that person an opportunity to state his position and defend himself.
But the government shouldn’t be dictating where such responses go, or how big they are, or threatening newspapers that don’t comply with heavy fines. That politicizes the news reporting process, which is exactly what the free press was created to avoid.
This isn’t an abstract issue. While the Czech Republic has been more respectful of press freedoms than its sister country, it faces a similar problem in public television, according to information in an upcoming report by the London-based Open Society Foundation, which monitors political, social and media issues.
The Czech TV Council oversight board was to be made up of people chosen by civil society groups, a practice established after an estimated 100,000 people protested on Wenceslas Square in 2001 over how executives were chosen to run Czech TV. However, five new members of the board are political appointees, and quite open about their political loyalties.
How do we know all this? It’s been reported in the Czech print media, a development hard to imagine if politicians controlled the press.
It’s a cliché to say that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. But, as this issue demonstrates, it’s absolutely true.


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