Final Word from Thursday, October 18, 2018

Bohuslav Sobotka is long gone as Czech PM and chairman of ČSSD, but Czech TV's news department retains its close ties to the Sobotka era. Most notably, Dep. News Editor František Lutonský is married to Jana Lutonská, one of the partners at Bison & Rose PR agency. It represents Zdeněk Bakala, who bought OKD under Sobotka's watch and has become a regular punching bag for Miloš Zeman because of it. A former partner at Bison & Rose, Miloš Růžička, also moonlighted as an adviser to Sobotka's interior minister, Milan Chovanec. For many years, the PR agency represented CEO Petr Dvořák of Czech TV, creating a Sobotka-Dvořák-Bakala triangle, with Bison & Rose at the center. Lutonský and his wife are only one part of the overall picture, but their conflict of interest helps to explain why Czech TV is pretending that the bitter fratricidal war within ČSSD is mainly between Jan Hamáček and the Zeman faction. The reality is that it has much more to do with the desperate effort of others from the Sobotka era, including some people at ČT, to stave of their final political or professional demise. [ Czech Republic prime minister Television ]