Prague, March 8 (CTK) – The public broadcaster Czech Television (CT) and the Economia publishers denounced the attacks on media in President Milos Zeman’s inauguration speech on Thursday.
Zeman accused the media of trying to manipulating the public and of bias.
The representatives of CT and Economia told CTK they dismiss Zeman’s accusations as attacks on the independence of the media were out of place.
The condemnation was joined by some politicians.
Zeman said in his speech the journalists from Economia did not deserve any respect and people should not take them seriously.
He argued that the publishing house belongs to the businessman Zdenek Bakala, whom he accused of embezzling money from the mining company OKD.
“We denounce Zeman’s statement that journalists from Economia should not have respect of the Czech Republic’s citizens,” Economia general director Roman Latuske said.
He said Economia, which operates the servers IHNED.cz and Aktualne.cz and publishes the financial paper Hospodarske noviny (HN), would keep supporting critical and unbiased journalism.
“The journalists of our papers do not look for any scoops, but for the truth. They will continue with what they do in all conscience,” he added.
Zeman accused the CT news coverage of siding with the TOP 09 party.
“I will presume that due to the recent election result of this party, CT will become somewhat more balanced,” Zeman said.
TOP 09 only received about 5 percent of the vote in the October general election.
CT spokeswoman Karolina Blinkova said the rhetoric targeting the public media was unacceptable.
“We absolutely reject any attacks on journalists and independence of the media, especially after the recent events in Slovakia, and in particular those by the supreme official of the Czech Republic,” Blinkova said in a veiled reference to the recent murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak in Slovakia.
Some politicians denoted Zeman’s speech as an attack on the freedom of speech.
TOP 09 leader Jiri Pospisil said Zeman had downgraded the act of the presidential oath-taking ceremony to “the level of a political farce.”
“We should be glad that it was not even worse,” Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) leader Pavel Belobradek said.
After Kuciak’s murder he should not have attacked the media he dislikes, he added.
On the other hand, leader of the anti-EU Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) Tomio Okamura said Zeman was right.
