Czech journalism after 1989

o   Cadres decide everything (Stalin) —> individual approach

o   Social structures determine/influence individual actors (most sociologist)

o   Experience of (post) communism ? (try to be as different as possible from the communist time)

o   Media landscape controlled by oligarchs? (mainstream part is controlled by the oligarchs)

o   Awareness of Western concept of objective journalism (should be balanced, neutral, objective, not mixing opinion with news)

• journalism has always been affected by the change of regime/revolution

• Often regime creates new media platforms/appoints head of those and replaces “old” form of media

1918: end of WWI, austria hungary collapsed, CS established, media system covering the whole political spectrum (multi party democracy)

• 1939: Nazi occupation leading journalists —> Exile or concentration camps, many media closed, nazi collaborators installed

• 1945: nazi collaborators executed/Fired, some journalists returned from exil/concentration camps

• 1948: communist coup —> again: many journalists to exile, jail, uranium mines, some media closed, hardline Stalinist line established

• 1968: brief period of prague spring liberalisation interrupted by warsaw paxct military invasion, reformists government replaced with hardliners, purges of reformist journalists, return to hardline “real socialism”

• 1989: velvet revolution, collapse of communim, jorunalists serving the old regime were forced to leave, “velvet” generation of journalists still in charge today

• 2008: economic crisis, takeover of media by czech tycoons, senior journalists establish their own independent outlets

— only official organizations were allowed to have their media

key media organizations from

• state

• political parties (one-party-rule, but still existence of socialist party and peoples party to keep the impression of democracy – even though there wasn’t really a choice what to vote for example)

• other organizations

• regions, districts : local press of the communist party

• No competition, no tabloids

  -          Regular directives from the party-state press office

  -          If in doubt or if the issue is sensitive, use the press agency copy (all the media will just print the official document from the government)  very restricted

a long tradition but in some years more or less success

• czech social democracy

• marxist workers party

• czech national socialists

• rival left party

• democracy vs communist party

established as alternative to social democrats (marxist)

• party mouthpiece ceske slovo —> nowadays: svobodne slovo (free word)

• after CS ondependence, national socialists part of most governments

• under communists: rubber stamp party

• velvet revolution: statement against policy brutality

• still exists

• Immediately joined the protests, voice of velvet revolution

• Mouthpiece of a decorative socialist party, dissatisfied journalists held in check by routine control mechanisms

• November 17, protests —> police crackdown denounced by the journalists and the party after bypassing cautious chief editor (printed an article about police violence)

• Throughout the regime change acted as a voice of regime change, calls to people to join the protests

• Perished in the 1990s

-          Remained hardline to the end (which cam quickly), the privatized itself

-          Paralyzed party leadership had no answer to mass protests

-          Official line upheld for some time, but then collapsed

-          Journalists installed new chief editor, who cut links with the party and privatized the daily for himself

-          They feel the nominal control by their publishers as a burden, anachronism and potential threat

-          “lets cut ties with them”

-          Employees during reformation weren’t listen anymore to chief direcors, did what they thought is right à hijacked the media platform

-          Civic forum needed sympathetic media

-          Organizations linked to the old regime have low legitimacy

-          Potential threat of a return to communism

-          Need to destroy its power structure for good

-          joined rudé parvo in 1970s

-          prestigious jobs in Europe, deputy chief editor in 1989

-          1989: founded private company borgis

-          1990: transferred assets to his “borgis”

-          1995: dropped links to communism and changed from rudé parvo to “parvo”

o   The owner lost control over the newspaper, he took over

• Many peoples wanted to start their own newspaper, a lot of competition

•   Party newspapers good start, but later declined

•   Regional dailies provatized by rude parvo

•   Late 1990ies: consolidation under german/swiss owners:

o   Rightwing dailies (Ger)

o   Regional dailies (Ger)

o   Dabloids & sports (Swiss)

o   Economy (Ger)

o   Leftwing daily (parvo) (Czech)

• German and swiss not to control, it was just a profitable buisness

• Newspaper market consolidated, difficult to enter with a new project

•    Internet: paper paid, online free à decrease of sales and revenues

• 2008: economic crisis: major drop in advertising revenues sales and profits; no reason to keep the newspapers that are no longer profitable

•     Exit of the foreign owners (beginning 2013 they let them drop; rich people in Czech bought the companies)

• Andrej Babis (leader of ANO; leading party) -> people questioned if the newspaper supported his campaign and helped him to recruit voters (even though he officially wasn’t the owner atm, but the “man behind it”)

-          2nd richest Czech

-          Doubled his wealth since 2022

-          Major focus on energy sector, but also involved in media

o   2013: bought Czech media center

o   One of the main Czech media conflomeerated

o   2018-2023: minority stakeholder in the French dailey “le monde”

• 2018: bought Marianne (FR)

• 2022: bailed Liberation (FR) by lending it money

o   Increased focus on quality journalism

o   Increased interest in the issue of media ownership

o   Increased diversity of perspective and of media plurality

o   Decreased independence

o   The Czech tycoon owned media is still mainstream

o   More or less act as their lapdogs

o   People increasingly read news online

o   Sales for newspaper dropping, online ads less lucrative

o   Smaller profits -> cuts

o   Less staff has to do more work à drop in quality à drop in readership -> smaller profits

beisides czech tycoon owned media, just:

o   Independent outlets managed to survive, watchdof journalism, quiet important

o   But they are still reaching mostly elite audiences, not the masses

parlamentni lisy, Czech free press, AC24, Aeronet, protiproud, raptor TV

MF DNes, Lidove noviny

Blesk, Aha!

Denik

Pravo

Hospodarske noviny

Context of journalistic work:

-          Media ownership (was changing in the last 35 years a lot) —> public service / oligarchs/ independent etc

-          Political economic other factrs

-          Emphasis on journalistic autonomy (real, declaratory, absent)

-          Dynamic changes, impact of internet

Key issues:

-          Political pressures on public service media

-          Oligarchs own mot of the mainstream

-          Alternatives are weak (audience, economy)

-          Fake news relatively strong

-          Media literacy low, trust in media moderate