Posts Tagged ‘media’
The 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.
Read MoreDenial of service Gov’t told to pull plug on Bornholm’s TV station
Proposed adjustments to the public-service-media landscape in Denmark could cost Bornholm its sole TV station. Three recommendations handed down by an expert panel on Tuesday for the future of the eight regional TV stations all include eliminating TV2 Bornholm as an independent outlet.
The recommendations are hardly a surprise: part of the brief given the panel by the culture ministry was to find a way to rectify a situation in which all TV regions receive the same funding. TV2 Bornholm, the smallest TV region, serves 40,000 people, yet gets the same 71.8 million kroner (€9.34 million) each year as TV 2 Kosmopol, which serves the 1.9 people living in Greater Copenhagen.
Two of the experts’ recommendations would redraw the map entirely, either by combining funding for TV and radio production or by creating 30 semi-independent local news outlets.
The last calls for the creation of a third TV region in eastern Denmark, and to include Bornholm as part of the coverage area for one of them. This may be the one scenario the other regions can accept, since they generally would remain intact, and, in fact, is something they long have hinted would be fair. In its report, the panel seemed to suggest it agreed. “To ensure that Denmark as a whole is covered uniformly, it is necessary to take money away from TV2 Bornholm.”
The author is a member of the TV2 Bornholm board of directors.
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