Posts Tagged ‘LRT’
EBU Executive Board expresses its serious concern over proposed changes to Lithuania’s public service media framework
Members of the Executive Board of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) have expressed their dismay to learn that the proposed amendments to the Law on Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT) are currently scheduled to be discussed by the Seimas (Lithuanian Parliament) after Easter without any due consideration being given to recommendations from the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission, nor to the critical observations expressed by the Seimas’ own legal experts and both the national and international journalist communities
The Executive Board – whose members are the leaders of 8 public service media organizations throughout Europe – stressed again on behalf of the EBU and their own organizations that the current draft law would only further increase the vulnerability of LRT to political pressure and thus severely undermine LRT’s public service remit and vital role in providing the Lithuanian public with independent, reliable and pluralistic information.
Read full announcement (external link)
Originally published on 30 Mar
Read MoreThe cuts stop here Lithuania’s public broadcaster makes a stand
Employees of LRT, the Lithuanian public broadcaster, began a three-day protest today as members of the Seimas opened discussion of a law that would make it easier to dismiss its director-general. Some 1,500 journalists and cultural figures gathered to raise alarm that the measure—which comes on the heels of a decision to reverse a planned 11% budget increase over the next three years—is an attack on LRT’s independence and an encroachment on free speech.
Earlier in the month, 10,000 people gathered for a similar protest, and many Lithuanians say hamstringing LRT puts Lithuania on a path already laid out in Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. That is indeed bad company, but the reality is that public broadcasters throughout Europe have come under increased political scrutiny. Cases such as the BBC’s misleading editing of a Donald Trump speech adds fuel to the critics’ fire, but the big scandals are rare, and, indeed, their reporting is deemed as being critical, fair and necessary by both the public and experts alike. No wonder why the lawmakers are irritated.
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