Final Word from Wednesday, July 25, 2018

The OKD commission puts Economia publishing house and the public media that are reliant on its commentators in a difficult position. Zdeněk Bakala is at the center of the investigation, so there is the complicated issue of how Bakala's journalists at Aktuálně, Ekonom, Hospodářské noviny and Respekt should react. This is further complicated by the fact that one of the other key figures, lawyer Radek Pokorný, worked for Bakala and was on the sup. board of his publishing house until 2011. If Bakala's journalists are real professionals, these connections shouldn't matter, because they'll look beyond them. Petr Honzejk of HN wrote yesterday that the commission is a good thing and that a debate about political accountability and at least moral guilt is needed. Yet when confronted with the uncomfortable truth that he and his colleagues are being paid from money that Bakala took out of OKD, he called it a lie. "Economia earns its own keep," he said. Perhaps a journalist of a business publisher could study a balance sheet (or Adam Smith) to learn a bit more about the role of capital in creating income. [Czech Republic Aktualne.cz parliamentary NWR Wealth of Nations Pokorný Wagner]