Czech Republic: Prima TV station told reporters to depict refugees as a risk and a threat or they wo

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Source: Romea

Thanks to several months of investigative work, HlidaciPes.org has acquired information and proof confirming that the management of Prima, together with the chief producers in the newsroom, have long advocated for the refugee issue to be presented primarily as a crisis, problem and threat. That is the spirit in which reporters are instructed to produce their news reporting.
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Given the nature of the topic, everybody quoted by Hlídací Pes asked that their anonymity be preserved, as they feared possible retaliation from the station management. "The atmosphere inside the newsroom is very tense. Most reporters are aware that there are not many other places they could go work, so they stick to the established line and accept the working conditions. Resistance to them is not accepted," one source told HlídacíPes.org.

It is easy to reconstruct the events from the beginning of last September. Station management, led by Jetmar and Obzinová, called an extraordinary meeting on Monday, 7 September 2015. During the first part of the meeting they spoke to the broader newsroom staff, then chose specific editors and reporters to cover the refugee issue and held a more detailed meeting with them on the second floor. The basic message from the first part of the meeting was unequivocal: A clear approach to the refugee "crisis" must be taken by reporters, namely, refugees represent a threat, "we" are concerned about Islamization, and "we" do not want to receive refugees.

The message was also sent that editors and reporters must identify with this approach and that anybody who did not intend to accept it would be unable to work at FTV Prima any longer. During the second meeting the instructions in this regard were even more concrete. Some editors objected during that meeting that to clearly dictate head of time what their reporting should sound like would contravene the code of journalistic ethics, but those objections were rejected with the message that there was to be no balance in the reporting and that ethics or objectivity were not to be raised as issues for several months to come at least. One reporter quit immediately after the meeting, while another left this spring in connection with this "migration edict".

Read more: http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/czech-republic-prima-tv-station-told-reporters-to-depict-refugees-as-a-risk-and-a-threat-or-they-would-be-fired#.V02CjvRKR7M.facebook

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