News server Romea.cz. Everything about Roma in one place

News server Romea.cz. Everything about Roma in one place

Analysis of Czech news server Deník.cz: Stupid, or flat-out racist?

22 October 2012
3 minute read

The Deník newspaper (available online as Deník.cz), owned by the Vltava Labe press, has long embodied a low standard of journalism in general and no standard at all when it comes to reporting on the Roma minority. The vast majority of its articles referring to the Roma minority in some way are either very stupid, or stink to high heaven of racism and xenophobia. When we realize that the paper usually prints articles by various racists or interviews with them (for example, with the former chair of the neo-Nazi Workers’ Party, Vandas), it becomes even clearer which way the wind is blowing.

We have pointed this out several times before. According to our information, one editor at one of the North Bohemian editions of Deník was even recently fired because of his racism, but that has not been enough to prevent racist messaging in the paper. Unfortunately, the editors at the Prague headquarters are successfully supervising some of their local-level newsrooms or some of their editors who display either apathy to racism or outright racism itself.

Editor Drahomíra Považanová has recently confirmed Deník.cz’s vicious distinction in this field. In an article called “The Worker’s Party demands protection” (Dělnická strana žádá o ochranu), Považanová writes the following about crime in Nový Bydžov (without even bothering to cite a source for this information): “The situation in Nový Bydžov escalated last fall after the Roma minority committed several muggings and the rape of a young woman.”

A statement like this just makes me want to cry out: “Ok, Roma, confess, why did you all, all 200 to 300 000 of you in the Czech Republic, rape a young woman in Nový Bydžov?” Such a generalization is an expression of racism and an incitement against Roma people.

Many questions surround the reporting methods of Deník (and Deník.cz). Why doesn’t the editor of the local news desk keep an eye out for such things? Why doesn’t the editor-in-chief of the local news desk address it? It seems these editors and editors-in-chief agree with this type of reporting, otherwise they would never publish reports formulated in such a way.

Why does the Prague news desk, which edits the national news section in Deník, not succeed in preventing this racism (or stupidity, whichever it is)? The Prague news desk honestly does its best, but this problem is taking on dimensions never seen before.

Last but not least: Why does the Vltava Labe press, which is a German publisher, tolerate something like this? Doesn’t the company sense that racism in connection with anything German continues to be understood in the context of the crimes and deprivations of WWII – and not just in the Czech Republic? With Nazism, that is to say, with Germany’s recent past? I am already receiving e-mails full of sarcastic commentary from Roma readers and others regarding the publisher of Deník, the spirit of which can be summed up in one sentence: “Would you expect anything else from the Germans?” (To put it in a very euphemistic, easy-to-swallow form).

So – what we expect from “the Germans”, from the Prague news desk of Deník, and from its local news desks is, all irony aside, the best. We expect them to follow the ethics of their profession, to finally make decisive cuts and get rid of their editors-in-chief, editors and reporters who are either so racist or so unintelligent as to not recognize racism when they see it. We expect them to train the rest of their journalists in such a way that similar reporting will never appear in Deník again. If it does, we decidedly will not keep quiet about it.

P.S. After calling editor Považanová, she promised she would correct the claim that the “Roma minority” raped the young woman. Even if she actually publishes a correction, that won’t answer the questions posed here.

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