Jana Horváthová, director of the Museum of Romani Culture, is running for a seat on the board of Czech Television
The first 20 candidates for the board of public broadcaster Czech Television, for which the Czech Senate will be appointing new members to six seats, have had an opportunity recently to introduce themselves to members of the upper house. The director of the Museum of Romani Culture, Jana Horváthová, was one of them, as was the former chair of the board, Jiří Baumruk, former Culture Minister and former general director of the public broadcaster, Jiří Balvín, and the film and television dramaturg and producer Čestmír Kopecký.
The remaining 49 candidates will have a chance to introduce themselves during the public discussion of their nominations on Thursday, 23 November. The Senate will select the new board members next week.
The board of Czech Television has 18 members, six selected by the Senate and 12 by the Chamber of Deputies. In her five-minute opening speech, Horváthová listed the reasons why she is running to become a member of the board.
“I love Czech Television, I prefer it to all the other television channels whose productions are negatively impacted by commercial considerations. Moreover, I consider Czech Television, as a public broadcast media outlet, to be a crucial pillar of our country’s democracy. I care about the fate of this media outlet that is so important to the Czech Republic and I would therefore like to aid with proper public control over it,” Horváthová said, adding that another reason she is running is her more than 30 years of work experience, primarily for the Museum of Romani Culture in Brno.
“My candidacy is in full accordance with the law, which requires that significant regional, social and cultural streams of opinion be represented on the board of Czech Television,” Horváthová said. In her view, Czech Television is brilliant when it comes to education and to increasing the level of the Czech public’s education.
The director of the Museum of Romani Culture also said Czech Television does a brilliant job of providing independent, objective news reporting. “I think the news programs on Czech Television are excellent,” she said when asked by one of the senators.
Horváthová then said she sees Czech Television as less successful when it comes to the presentation of the Romani minority. She also mentioned that subject as one reason for her candidacy.
“Czech Television does beneficial work in this matter, but it has some shortcomings here. Romani people have gifted persons among them, frequently artistically gifted ones in particular who could be and should be contributing to the work of the public broadcast media. I am here to announce that I would love to bring the majority and this minority together, as I have been doing my best to do for the entirety of my adult, productive life,” Horváthová said.
Horváthová was also asked about the concessionary fees for Czech Television, increases to which are currently being discussed. “I personally would be for adjusting the concessionary fees to keep pace with inflation. I think that would be absolutely appropriate,” she said.
During the public hearing, each candidate has five minutes to introduce themselves and 10 minutes to respond to the senators’ questions. The Senate Commission on the Media (unlike the Committee on the Media in the lower house) will not have the power to pre-select the candidates for admission to the final round of voting.
Given this public preliminary screening, as in the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate does not count on having the candidates reappear during the Senate session to vote on new members, scheduled to begin at the end of November. The new board members will be chosen by secret ballot and the process could have two rounds.
The boards of the public broadcast radio and television stations represent a tool through which the public can control these institutions. Their powers include approving the budget and electing a general director.
JANA HORVÁTHOVÁ’S FULL SPEECH IN THE CZECH SENATE IN TRANSLATION
Hello, Esteemed Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have decided to run to become a member of the board of Czech Television for several reasons.
I love Czech Television, I prefer it to all the other television channels whose productions are negatively impacted by commercial considerations. Moreover, I consider Czech Television, as a public broadcast media outlet, to be a crucial pillar of our country’s democracy. I care about the fate of this media outlet that is so important to the Czech Republic and I would therefore like to aid with proper public control over it.
The second reason is that I am now a person who is maure enough, perhaps even ripe enough (I’m not claiming to be wise), but I have 35 years of uninterrupted work behind me save for the three times I was on maternity leave – I have three daughters, two of whom are already grown – so I have experience of life and of work behind me. In addition, for 20 years I have been the director of the first and so far the only Museum of Romani Culture in the world, which I aided with building from the beginning in Brno, initially as a civic association and then as a state institution since 2005.
This museum is headquartered in my native city of Brno and has another branch in Hodonín u Kunštátu, where it runs the Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Moravia. With the aid of Norway Grants we are building a branch a Lety u Písku, which is well-known through the media, and lastly we are also building a branch here in Prague with the assistance of Norway Grants, a center for the culture of our indigenous Czech Roma and Sinti who were murdered during the Second World War.
My candidacy is in full accordance with the law, which requires that significant regional, social and cultural streams of opinion be represented on the board of Czech Television
That brings me to the third reason for my candidacy, and that is my origins in Brno, the metropolis of Moravia, where I have spent my entire life to date. In Brno, I worked in the television studio as an editor, dramaturg and moderator. Czech Television is legally obligated, after all, to provide its services such that they cover the entire public spectrum, including ethnic, cultural, social and medical minorities, and it is also meant to serve the regions.
The fourth reason is that I come from a mixed family, I am of Czech and Romani nationality, and I also perceive that I have an affiliation that is cosmopolitan and indivisible with the whole world and with the universe beyond it. However, I am very well aware that the Roma and Sinti are still either overlooked in our country, or viewed stereotypically. Czech Television does beneficial work in this matter, but it has some shortcomings here. Romani people have gifted persons among them, frequently artistically gifted ones in particular who could be and should be contributing to the work of the public broadcast media. I am here to announce that I would love to bring the majority and this minority together, as I have been doing my best to do for the entirety of my adult, productive life.
In this time of tensions in terms of commerce and the economy, I feel Czech Television is endangered when it comes to providing balanced information that is independent of political pressures. That makes the import of this public broadcaster all the greater, so that in the flood of disinformation, fake news and hoaxes, it can provide everybody, including the socially weak, with a correct orientation through objective information that will aid viewers with navigating the complexity of today’s world.
I have long perceived there to be weaknesses in that direction at Czech Television, which is doing its best to keep up with commercial television channels. However, the commercial channels speak to their viewers chiefly as customers, they sell them advertisements, while Czech Television speaks to us as citizens. Czech Television should, therefore, strengthen citizens’ faith in the public broadcast media, as it is one of the pillars of power in any democratic country.
The first step in that direction will be for the board of Czech Television to be independent of any political power. Here I can state that I am not a member of any political party. I never have been and I also have my experiences as a child growing up during socialism, as it really was, in a dissident family. I have also been greatly influenced by my father, Karel Holomek, and my uncle, Milan Šimečka.
With my father, soon after 1989, I fought for the creation of an independent workplace for the Museum of Romani Culture that would be professional and independent of political pressures. During the first year of the museum’s existence we waged a demanding, successful struggle with representatives of a Romani political party, the Roma Civic Initiative, which did its best to influence the museum.
On the other hand, I don’t want to promise the impossible here. I am aware that working on the board is clearly defined by the law, which I know and fully respect. I greatly value the work of Czech Television, it brings the public together during crisis situations, as was recently demonstrated during COVID-19 in how the public broadcaster approached children’s programming, or programs for senior citizens. In such crisis situations, the irreplaceability and the power of public broadcast media is demonstrated. I am, therefore, applying to be of service as a guardian of these public functions of Czech Television.
According to the foundational laws of the European Union, the freedom and the plurality of public broadcasting must be preserved. I would like to make a contribution at Czech Television in that regard. Thank you.
