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Czech National Radio Wrongly Accuses Senator Dienstbier

30. 4. 2010 / Štěpán Kotrba

Hrbáček supposedly got the information from the Czech Institute for the Study of the Totalitarian Regime. According to him, Dienstbier's files had been discarded. Based on what this is claimed by the reporter, in breach of the journalistic and public radio codexes, Hrbáček didn't say.

As it then emerged a day later, actually the files had not been destroyed. And it is on the contrary written in them that Dienstbier has never cooperated with the secret services of the regime he fought against. The Czech National Radio's information and music station Radiožurnál corrected the whole affair the following day, but not enough. Besides, the fatal journalistic mistake was not even admitted by the journalist, who instead tried to spin it further.

The member of the news division of the station, just like once in 2006 under the management of Hana Hikelová, once again let out a news piece based on one sole source. This time the single source being the Institute for the Study of the Totalitarian Regime, on top of it all, called an "independent expert" the former chief of post-Velvet Revolution military Intelligence services Ándor Šándor, who later became also an advisor to the center right Civic Democrats` (ODS) premier Mirek Topolánek.

One thing that has been missed on the whole affair created by Hrbáček is the conflict between the information from the Czech National Radio (Čro) and and the Institute (ÚSTR). How is it possible that the institution, which has to take care of such important files, then has no idea where they are and the following day "accidentally" finds them hidden somewhere, after a request from former student-revolutionaire and Senator Martin Mejstříka? Or is it just that Hrbáček simply didn't go through the trouble of looking for Dienstbier's files at all and got satisfied with his only source?

Radiožurnál claims that they "tried to get Dienstbier's papers from the middle of March, but unsuccessfully." In other words: they knew that the documents exist, just that they didn't get permission to get them. Throughout all this time that went by they should haven known already that the files had not been really discarded. The Institute (ÚSTR) declares through the lips of their spokesperson:

"The Institute for the Study of the Totalitarian Regime requested those materials, concretely for the files from the Intelligence Services, and from the archives section it was answered that they had been non-delimited".

What does non-delimited mean? Delimitation is the scope of reach. In this case it means that it is not yet decided if the files in question can be available for public research. But even that is not true in the case of Dienstbier's files, because they had been released based on a request made by Senator Mejstřík, who though did not go pick it up. But in no circumstance that could mean that the document was discarded. Just that such mistaken information is surprising especially at an institution whose employees have the guts to attack their own director. At the ÚSTR there is actually such a mess that the institution doesn't even know, how to find documents and who is entitled to deal with them. That's one finding from the whole cause.

In what way Hana Hikelová directs the news division of the Czech public radio if she allows such a controversial accusation without checking properly its veracity to be broadcast as hardnews?

According to Czech broadcast laws, who is responsible for the content of what goes on the air is the medium. In this case, the radio station. According the their own code of work, a piece of news has to be based on at least two reliable sources.

From the document in question, though, according to the Czech News Agency (ČTK), it is evident that in Dientsbier's case we are not talking about a conscious cooperation with the totalitarian regime's intelligent apparatus. In the end, there was actually NO COOPERATION OF ANY KIND, not even unconscious... That's a second finding.

This appalling example of crooked accusation of a cooperation between Dienstbier and the secret services is the headline which the station used omn Tuesday -- Dienstbier was taken out from the secret services` registries". They did not say "We Mistakenly Accused Senator Dienstbier of Cooperation with Former Regime" or "Dienstbier never cooperated with the secret services, we apologize for the erroneous information we broadcast"... No, just a "Dienstbier has been taken out (...)". Not even a word of appology, not even a shadow of impugnment of their own slack and tabloidish work. And the article published online in their site still continues to repeat some nonsense, which had come up with the original article. The desperate state of the system of controlling the news the Czech public radio publishes is a third finding.

According to internal information, Hrbáček has quit. He did it just a little bit before he would have been fired, anyway. The question is, though, whether should Hana Hikelová continue to direct the news division. The releasing of the Kubic Report also fell under her competence, not to mention that she passionately defended Hrbáček during the debate over the potential breaking of the rules or laws by the public radio.

One time such a mistake can happen. Twice already not. The lack of a public apology to Senator Dienstbier and her attempt to spin the story of the obviously unprofessional journalist hints at either the whole thing having been a tailored political intrigue or simple dilettantism. Both are for the director of the Czech public radio's news division fatal sins.

If the news division was not capable of apologizing, then the general director of the public radio should have done so through a press release. He has no reason why to get embarrassed, for he did not create the mistake. He should, though, take sharp steps in changing some personnel. There is still time to do so. And he should. The management of the Czech public radio cannot pretend that nothing happened. It did.

Disclosure: the author used to be part of the Czech Public Radio's controlling council.

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