Czech Home Secretary: It is not the duty of the state to provide objective information about the refugee issue

18. 3. 2016

Czech journalists are afraid to present refugees in a positive light

Czech social democratic Home Secretary Milan Chovanec and the Green Party Chairperson Matěj Stropnický discussed the distorted image of refugees in the Czech media.

Masaryk University in Brno has produced a media analysis which warns that the Czech media almost never feature individual human refugee stories and almost always present the refugees as a threat. Czech TV stations report activities in support of the refugees only in a minimal number of news stories (Czech public service TV in 4,6 per cent of the cases, commercial Nova TV only in 3 per cent of the cases). They almost never interview migration experts (they have featured them in 1 per cent of the cases on both stations). They almost never analyse the causes of the refugee crisis and report on the situation in the countries from which the refugees are escaping. When referring to the refugees, the Czech media often use expressions such as "flood", "tsunami", "hunting them down". The Czech media primarily refer to the refugees as a security threat and primarily report security measures directed against them.

In a recent debate on Czech public service TV, the Green Party Chairperson Matěj Stropnický criticised the Czech Social Democratic Home Secretary Milan Chovanec for failing to provide objective information about the refugee problem to the Czech public.

Chovanec replied that it was not the role of the government to provide such information. In his view, this is the role of the media.

However, Václav Moravec, the well-known Czech presenter of a regular Czech TV political debating programme pointed out that Czech journalists are afraid of presenting refugees in a positive light because they would become the target of hate of the extremists.

Source in Czech HERE

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