Final Word from Monday, January 27, 2025

ANO and SPD blocked a vote on Fri. in the lower chamber of Parliament on the bill for raising the monthly user's fees for Czech TV and Czech Radio, but the coalition parties plan to put a stop to the filibustering by setting a firm time this week for the vote. There is much at stake. Joe Biden said in his farewell address on Jan. 15 that the "free press is crumbling," and Czech Culture Min. Martin Baxa of ODS has called the Czech public media the "key guardian of democracy." Yet PM Petr Fiala presented things in a different light in his interview on TV Prima on Jan. 12. He told debate-show host Terezie Tománková that everyone knows that Prima is a sort of opposition TV that tries somewhat to be the Czech version of Fox News. It was Fiala's way of dismissing complaints about a bad business environment in the country. At the same time, though, he essentially divided the media into "opposition" and "pro-government," and everyone knows which category Czech TV and Czech Radio fall into. [ Czech Republic Television CNN Prima News minister obstruction ]