Czech Council on Radio and TV rejects critique of public broadcaster's reality show about Romani schoolchildren

Nonprofit organizations in the Czech Republic have received an answer from the Council on Radio and Television Broadcasting (RRTV) to the open letter in which they criticized the television series "Class 8A" (Třída 8.A.). The nonprofits believe the series has not fulfilled its intended aim of pointing out the problem of segregation of Romani pupils in the Czech schools.  

The nonprofits complained that instead, the series is bolstering a stereotypical image of Romani people. The RRTV has now rejected that critique.

Eight nonprofits sent the open letter to the broadcast authority last month. Its authors believe the regulations of the law on broadcasting have been broken, according to which there is an obligation not to include programs for broadcast that could uphold stereotypical prejudices about ethnic, religious or racial minorities.

The signatories to the letter documented their claim through specific complaints about the series. They mentioned, for example, the inappropriate choice of the "docu-reality show" format for the stated aim of the program, or the intentional choice of footage of emotional situations for inclusion by the editors.

The criticism also asserted that the naiveté of the underage pupils had been exploited and that the influences of any possible learning disorders, or influences of their social background, on their behavior were completely ignored, as was the incompetence of the teachers, whose failures to handle their classrooms could look to a lay viewer like definitive proof that Romani pupils are ineducable. The letter also devoted a great deal of space to criticizing the program’s failure to respect the request of a pregnant pupil who did not want her pregnancy publicized.

This approach, according to the nonprofits, was absolutely on the borderline of what is considered ethical. Overall, in their view, the series has confirmed the average viewers’ stereotypical view of Romani people as having a "wild" nature, being uninterested in education, being incapable of obeying majority-society norms, and of having children at young ages in order to live on welfare.  

On the basis of these arguments, the nonprofits asked the RRTV to instruct the creators of the program to apologize to the pupils of "Class 8A" and not to continue the series. The RRTV, after monitoring all of their complaints, has rejected them across the board.  

The RRTV says the problem with the open letter is that in most cases its criticisms are not related to specific scenes, but are opinions about the general impression made by the series or are mere assumptions. The RRTV also said some points of the critique have nothing to do with the current legislation governing the media.  

In its response, the RRTV placed great emphasis on defending the program’s publicizing of the pupil’s pregnancy. Her wishes, according to RRTV chair Ivan Krejčí, were heard: "The pupil actually was not ever asked on camera about that topic after she expressed her unwillingness to discuss it further. The information, however, spread through the school, and viewers do follow the dissemination of the information in that way from secondary sources – from Kristýna’s fellow pupils and her mother."

The RRTV also rejects the charge that editors intentionally chose emotional scenes that might support stereotypes about Romani people:  "Documentary material must always be filmed in such a way as to represent either just one perspective or just a few perspectives on reality, it is always necessary to choose what will be filmed and subsequently, somehow, to choose footage to edit, and the result always represents just a certain segment of that reflected reality, viewed through one of several possible ways, and it cannot help but include a certain degree of abbreviation and stylization of that view of reality. This is the customary characteristic of the language of film and indeed of any other communication code or language. It is not possible to automatically see an unacceptable bias in the perspective chosen here."  

The nonprofits’ demand that the makers of the series apolotize to the protagonist-pupils from Class 8A and that the series not be continued will not be heard. "The Council has no powers to instruct the broadcaster, which is legally responsible for the content of what is broadcast, to apologize, and it cannot instruct the creators of the content either. The proposal to stop the broadcast or its further continuation is de facto a suggestion to censor the program, which is, understandably, unacceptable," Krejčí explains in his response.

Besides the nonprofits that signed the open letter to the RRTV, there are other nonprofits standing behind the authors of the series. For example, Tomáš Feřtek of the public benefit corporation EDUin believes the series fulfills its stated aims and is pointing out the deficiencies that exist in the Czech schools.  

Feřtek commented on the issue to news server iDNES.cz as follows:  "I think the program was rather useful. This was the first time I was able to see on television how things really go in classrooms. It shows the clash between unprepared teachers and what a classroom really looks like. It’s true that this is what it looks like in classrooms where most of the pupils are Romani, but it frequently looks just that same way in classrooms where the ethnic composition of the pupils is completely different. The same horny boys are in those classrooms too, they’re just blond."

Feřtek disagrees with the other nonprofits’ request that the series not continue. In his view it would be more effective to use the program to establish an actual debate about how unprepared teachers in the Czech Republic are for complex instructional and pedagogical situations.