Residents of Czech housing estate criticize TV Nova's biased reportage on their neighborhood, say progress is being ignored

In its reportage, TV Nova repeated year-old information that the situation at the housing estate had become so exacerbated that a pizzeria in Ústí nad Labem had stopped delivering there because it feared for the safety of its staff. Reporter Martin Kočárek said the local administration has “cracked down” on the housing estate, justifying its moves as necessitated by allegedly repeated incidents of the infrastructure being destroyed there.

“Basically all of the sidewalks and the nearby benches and swings, the children’s playground, the garbage cans, have been repeatedly destroyed, it all gets destroyed,” Mayor Yveta Tomková of the municipal department of Neštěmice is quoted as saying in the reportage. Irena Dunová, a housing estate resident who volunteers locally, told news server Romea.cz that: “The constant stigmatization of this excluded locality is basically becoming embarrassing. To describe a pizza delivery incident that was refuted, to describe what it was like here two years ago, to bring to mind the destruction of benches which do not exist here, or the children’s playground that also does not exist here, is also just embarrassing.”

Jozef Miker, a Romani activist, called the reportage untruthful and based on old footage which does not correspond to the housing estate today. “Reporter Martin Kočárek was showing life on the Mojžíř housing estate in Ústí nad Labem and his commentary was not based on the truth. The footage they showed on TV Nova was old, and Mayor Tomková’s remarks, those of Kočárek, and those of the local housing estate residents who said on TV that nothing has improved there were deceptive,” Miker said.

Jozef Miker: There are not enough waste receptacles at the housing estate

Other residents of Mojžír agree that problems such as litter still persist, but emphasize that there are many positive things happening there. According to Miker, the situation at Mojžíř has changed for the better, but the problem of insufficient waste removal and the small number of receptacles persists.

“There is a big problem at the Mojžíř housing estate with waste removal and there are terribly few receptacles there. I don’t know if the mayor is doing it intentionally or if the garbage removal services actually don’t want to go there, but they do need more receptacles and more frequent waste removal,” Miker explained.

Miker published photographs of Mojžíř to Facebook which show that the housing estate looks like any other, without significant litter. A video filmed on 8 July at the housing estate, the day after the reportage was broadcast, did not find the waste receptacles overflowing with litter as the TV Nova reportage did.

According to the commentary by reporter Martin Kočárek, the TV Nova footage was taken before the long holiday weekend (5-7 July) and he alleged that even more tons of trash would be added over the weekend there. However, the video filmed on 8 July shows that nothing of the sort happened – there is some litter to be seen around the garbage cans, but decidedly nothing on the scale that was presented by TV Nova.

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“In that locality, volunteers who live there clean up the public spaces three times a week. A children’s football club has started, there are different outdoor events for children, and we are preparing to establish a group called For a Better Mojžíř (Pro lepší Mojžíř). It’s sad that the media constantly broadcast a distorted image of this locality instead of reporting about the positive changes and activities which are happening here,” Dunová said, who confirmed that problems with litter around the garbage cans do exist.

“There are ongoing problems with furniture that is infested with bedbugs being left by the garbage cans, that’s a fact. We don’t know what to do about that yet,” Dunová said.

According to Miker, the city should arrange for a large container to be brought there at least once a week so people can throw away furniture and other things they don’t need. “That’s how this was addressed in Krupka,” he told news server Romea.cz.

Juraj Makula: Local residents are doing their best to change a bad situation

The report by TV Nova is also being criticized by Juraj Makula, a student who has lived on the housing estate since childhood and who just graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Ambis College in Prague. According to him, the reportage was biased and concentrated on events which are more than a year old.

Makula believes the actual situation is much more complex and requires an active approach from both the local residents and public institutions. “Almost half of the reportage focused on events which took place a year ago, the other half was just laments and excuses,” he told Romea.cz, while admitting the housing estate does have problems.

“The situation at Mojžíř is pitiful, things are frequently a mess, there’s a lot of noise late at night, children are unsupervised and living their own lives there, and there are many other negative factors combined with the high rents which exist thanks to the absolutely unresolved trafficking in poverty that happens there,” Makula said. However, he stresses that most of the residents are unsatisfied with the current situation and are doing their best to change it.

“Litter is exactly one of the areas in which locals have started to become actively engaged. A group of local women even regularly cleans up the housing estate on a volunteer basis. Of course, that is not enough!” he said.

Makula wonders why no visual improvements have been made in the last year. “I ask, on the basis of this reportage and the information it publicized, how is it possible that no visible improvement has happened here? How is it possible that the local authority has done absolutely nothing, but we are hearing from this reportage that they ‘cracked down on the housing estate’?”

According to Makula, the current situation on the housing estate is the result of the failure of many individuals and institutions to fulfill their obligations and take action. He criticizes the city and the municipal department first and foremost for having not intervened in what is happening in the excluded locality much earlier and much more forcefully.

“We keep seeing more and more reportages about what an awful place Mojžíř is and how the relevant public administration bodies are unable to do anything about it. I believe it would be more than appropriate to actually change something instead of making excuses and pointing fingers. The solution will not be easy at all, I realize that, but if the state authorities take a coordinated approach to it in collaboration with local authorities and with the residents of the Mojžíř housing estate first and foremost, it’s possible to improve the situation and to even resolve it in the long run,” Makula told Romea.cz.