Prague, Jan 13 (CTK) – Two Czech Television (CT) reporters Frantisek Lutonsky and Michal Kubal have dismissed the allegation that in their coverage of the U.S. presidential election they sided with Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump in a letter sent to the Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting (RRTV) on Friday.
On Thursday, the RRTV said the public broadcaster CT had violated the law because its news coverage of the American Election Night programme was biased and unbalanced.
“Your argument has caused the creators and collaborators of the programme to feel embittered and treated unfairly, especially due to the expedience and obvious bias of your report,” the two reporters said.
“None of the tens of people preparing the programme had the slightest interest in preferring either of the candidates,” they added.
The CT newscast management asked why the RRTV had not evaluated the whole 12-hour broadcasting, but only its fraction.
It said the programme had showed 27 guests, including Trump’s open followers and Clinton’s tough critics.
It wondered why the RRTV had called U.S. Ambassador Andrew Schapiro an obvious follower of Clinton, not the top representative of the USA in the Czech Republic.
The CT management members called on the RRTV to disclose on the basis of what analyses it had denoted CNN as a television programme which openly sided with Clinton.
The RRTV argued that the programme manipulated with the picture and text during a report on the attitude of U.S. celebrities to both candidates.
It said in its comments, CT had given the word to four U.S. nationals, all of whom were Clinton’s followers and criticised Trump.
In addition, CT used the contribution by the U.S. CNN that openly sided with Clinton, the RRTV said.
In some cases, the comments were not separated from news coverage information, it added.
