Prague, April 11 (CTK) – Public Czech Television uses newscasts and TV debates to promote the liberal left wing that is present in all parties, by which it creates a false impression of objectivity, but it is critical of President Milos Zeman and ANO chairman Andrej Babis, Zeman’s spokesman Jiri Ovcacek said today.
He was speaking at a conference on Czech Television’s (CT) role, held in the seat of the Senate, the upper house of parliament.
“Czech Television creates a false impression of pluralism and objectivity,” he said.
He said a “herd thinking” prevails in CT newscasts, with space being given to the promoters of the so-called liberal left wing, formerly dubbed non-political politics advocates, who can be found in almost all parliamentary parties and whose common denominator is their criticism of Zeman and Babis.
The ANO movement of Babis, the billionaire finance minister, comfortably leads party popularity polls and is widely expected to win the October general election.
To illustrate his accusation, Ovcacek mentioned CT’s news coverage of the U.S. presidential election, which, he said, promoted the Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton.
He said a CT reportage on a traditional Chinese medicine clinic in the Czech Republic intentionally failed to mention the name of Radek Pokorny, a lawyer close to PM Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD).
Furthermore, he criticised CT for broadcasting a documentary portrait of Jiri Drahos, former Science Academy chairman and one of Zeman’s rivals in the 2018 presidential election.
“Czech Television will continue to interfere and behave similarly in [covering] the presidential election as well as the [October] general election,” Ovcacek warned.
He said Zeman had sent him to the conference and discussed the contents of his speech beforehand.
