Suchergebnisse

Autonomy is of paramount importance for journalism, but there is little empirically based knowledge of how journalists cope when it is threatened. Using a case study approach, this contribution examines a newsroom conflict that took place in the public service Radio and Television of Slovakia. It started when the new director general, a person believed to have ties to one of the coalition political parties, was elected by the parliament in 2017, and it culminated in layoffs and resignations of more than 30 reporters and editors in 2018. The case study is based on semi-structured interviews (N = 16) with the journalists who decided to quit in protest of what they called "creeping political pressure," those whose contracts were not prolonged, those who decided to stay at their jobs, and the members of the previous and the new management. Building on the interviews and document analysis, the article inductively develops a classification scheme for resistance practices the journalists used to cope with the perceived interference with their professional autonomy that came from within their media organisation. These practices include having internal discussions, voicing concerns during newsroom meetings, writing an internal letter to the management, meeting with the management, establishing a trade union, requesting mediation, writing an open letter to the viewers and listeners, publicly criticising the management in the media, voluntarily asking to be re-assigned to another topic area or position in order to avoid interference, staying at one's job in open opposition to the management, and resigning in protest.

Autonomy is of paramount importance for journalism, but there is little empirically based knowledge of how journalists cope when it is threatened. Using a case study approach, this contribution examines a newsroom conflict that took place in the public service Radio and Television of Slovakia. It started when the new director general, a person believed to have ties to one of the coalition political parties, was elected by the parliament in 2017, and it culminated in layoffs and resignations of more than 30 reporters and editors in 2018. The case study is based on semi-structured interviews (N = 16) with the journalists who decided to quit in protest of what they called "creeping political pressure", those whose contracts were not prolonged, those who decided to stay at their jobs, and the members of the previous and the new management. Building on the interviews and document analysis, the article inductively develops a classification scheme for resistance practices the journalists used to cope with the perceived interference with their professional autonomy that came from within their media organisation. These practices include having internal discussions, voicing concerns during newsroom meetings, writing an internal letter to the management, meeting with the management, establishing a trade union, requesting mediation, writing an open letter to the viewers and listeners, publicly criticising the management in the media, voluntarily asking to be re-assigned to another topic area or position in order to avoid interference, staying at one's job in open opposition to the management, and resigning in protest.

This paper maps judicial self-government in Czechia and argues that although Czechia is sometimes perceived as a black sheep of Europe for not introducing any form of judicial council into its judicial system, there is in fact a substantial amount of judicial selfgovernment exercised by several bodies, the most important being the court presidents, and it is therefore a mistake to conflate judicial self-government with judicial councils. The most notable changes to judicial self-government are then introduced and their impact on values crucial for the functioning of the judiciary assessed. And, as the judicial selfgovernment in Czechia is primarily exercised by court presidents, the narrative of changes to judicial self-government and their impact is presented as a narrative of changes affecting court presidents and of their effects on the wider legal, social and political fields. The dominance of court presidents, built in part on informal powers, is a mixed blessing however, as it can have both positive and negative impact on the crucial values and may prove rather fragile in the future. ; This paper maps judicial self-government in Czechia and argues that although Czechia is sometimes perceived as a black sheep of Europe for not introducing any form of judicial council into its judicial system, there is in fact a substantial amount of judicial selfgovernment exercised by several bodies, the most important being the court presidents, and it is therefore a mistake to conflate judicial self-government with judicial councils. The most notable changes to judicial self-government are then introduced and their impact on values crucial for the functioning of the judiciary assessed. And, as the judicial selfgovernment in Czechia is primarily exercised by court presidents, the narrative of changes to judicial self-government and their impact is presented as a narrative of changes affecting court presidents and of their effects on the wider legal, social and political fields. The dominance of court presidents, built in part on informal powers, is a mixed blessing however, as it can have both positive and negative impact on the crucial values and may prove rather fragile in the future.

The article discusses the development in the administration of the Slovak judiciary since the separation of Czechoslovakia and the impact of the empowerment of the judicial self-governance on the functioning of the judicial system. After independence, the administration of the judiciary initially rested in the hands of the executive. In 2002, Slovakia created its Judicial Council and transferred a considerable amount of powers on it, especially related to judicial careers. It was expected that this would de-politicize the judicial system. However, a high level of autonomy of the judiciary chiefly led to the empowerment of judicial elites. This reduced the democratic accountability of the judiciary, encapsulating it from society and enabling it to promote its own interests. Selection processes have often been used to fill judicial ranks with judges with close ties to the system. Accountability mechanisms such as promotions, disciplinary procedures or remuneration schemes were used to reward allies of those on the top of the hierarchy and to punish their critics. Still, adherence to EU-backed standards on the administration of the judiciary may have increased the legitimacy of the judiciary, while concentrating decision-making in one body enhanced transparency, which was furthered due to low public confidence resulting in unprecedented levels of information available about the Slovak judicial system. All in all, the Slovak example displays the dangers of establishing judicial self-governance in countries where an internal ethical culture and a strong sense of judicial duty are still lacking.

Female journalists worldwide still struggle for adequate representation in leadership positions. This study contributes to the (mainly Western) scholarship on gender barriers in journalism by exploring the mechanism of vertical gender segregation in the journalistic profession in the Czech Republic, a non-Western country with the legacy of a women's emancipation project sponsored by the former communist regime. Semi-structured interviews ( N = 17) with female journalists in leadership positions revealed five main barriers: overall gender inequality in the Czech society; family and household responsibilities; lower self-esteem and ambition in women; sexism and sexual harassment; and masculine newsroom culture and "old boys' clubs."

Although public service media is a trusted island in the media landscape of many countries, trust in public service media is not absolute and universal. This study adopts a qualitative approach to explore what trust and distrust entail for the public, a perspective rarely applied in trust research. Also, it explores the extent to which the sources of trust and distrust are the same and whether the concepts of trust and distrust are identical (only inverse), or linked but separate. It focuses on the Czech Republic, where the level of trust in the news is among the lowest in the world, yet public service media is the most trusted news source (Newman et al., 2022). Based on four focus group discussions with the general public (N = 24), this study analyzes the reasons for the audience's trust and distrust in Czech public service media. There are three main categories: trust in the message (i.e., people trust public service media if, in their view, it provides objective, truthful, reliable, relevant, and fast information without sensationalism and anti-system views); trust in the source (i.e., people trust public service media if they perceive the public service media journalists as professional); and trust in the public service media organizations (i.e., people trust public service media if they perceive the regulatory framework as effective in ensuring independence from politics and oversight boards as a guarantee for quality). As the reasons leading to trust were not identical (only inverse) to the reasons leading to distrust, our findings suggest that trust and distrust in public service media are not two sides of the same coin.

This article examines how the two most popular Czech quality dailies framed refugees and migrants during the European refugee crisis in 2015. It explores the extent to which the framing described by previous studies carried out in Western and/or destination countries can also be identified in the newspapers of a country that has had only minimal experience with migration. Instead of identifying frames beforehand and coding them as holistic variables, a routinely used approach to frame analysis, it employs a more reliable and transparent method of hierarchical cluster analysis. The dailies framed the refugees and migrants mainly as a burden on host society, as victims of a humanitarian crisis and, to a lesser degree, as a security threat. The results show that the frames used by the Czech dailies closely correspond to those described in previous research, despite the different methods of analysis and the different geographical and cultural settings.

This paper analyses the change of public trust in journalists in the Czech Republic and investigates the main characteristics of mistrusting audiences. Comparative analysis based on two representative surveys of the Czech population reveals that public trust in journalists declined by a third between 2004 and 2016. Mistrust is on the rise especially among: a socio-economically de­prived media consumers b with leftist political orientation c belonging to the youngest cohort. The analysis also indicates a split of the ideal-typical image of a journalist as a highly-educated advocate of socially vulnerable groups, and suggests the return of a perception of journalists as establishment representatives which prevailed during the previous "real socialist" regime.

AbstractThe paper explores the process of the Czech journalists setting the EU agenda in the media during the 'hot phase' of the Czech national parliament election campaigns in 2002, 2006, and 2010. Unlike most studies that concentrated on the media agenda in the European Parliament election campaigns, we focused on periods that were neither strictly key events nor routine, but that were more intensively covered by the media and simultaneously generated more influential political representation defining national political attitudes towards the EU. Articles that referred to the EU during the 'hot phase' were content analyzed. The results suggest that in the Czech press, the EU agenda is less and less visible, and, moreover, that it is increasingly negatively framed and reduced to an economic agenda.

I přesto, že diskuse o Nejvyšší radě soudnictví (NRS) trvá už několik dekád, komplexní analýza toho, jaké postoje ke zřízení NRS zastávají klíčoví aktéři, kterých se samospráva soudnictví týká – soudci, politici a praktikující právníci – doposud chybí. Cílem tohoto textu je tuto mezeru vyplnit a na základě rozhovorů se zástupci českých právnických, soudcovských a politických elit zmapovat argumenty, které rozdělují zastánce a odpůrce NRS. V článku si klademe tři hlavní otázky: 1) Jak se zástupci právnických, soudcovských a politických elit staví ke zřízení NRS a jakými argumenty svou pozici zdůvodňují? 2) Jakou by měla mít správa soudnictví podle nich ideální podobu? 3) Co tyto tři skupiny od vzniku NRS očekávají?Hlavní zjištění jsou následující. Soudci, politici a právníci identifikovali stejné dva klíčové problémy stávajícího systému: ministerstvo nemá kapacitu ani vizi, jak soudnictví spravovat, a mnohé kompetence proto deleguje na předsedy soudů. Příliš silné postavení předsedů soudů však vede k fragmentaci správy soudnictví a ohrožuje vnitřní nezávislost řadových soudců. Elity se nicméně liší v tom, zda zřízení NRS tyto problémy vyřeší. Většina soudců vznik NRS podporuje a očekává od ní sjednocení správy soudnictví a odbřemenění předsedů soudů. Část politiků by souhlasila s ustanovením slabého modelu NRS, pokud by kontury systému pořád nastavovalo ministerstvo spravedlnosti. Zároveň však tvrdí, že fragmentovaná správa je lepší zárukou proti ovládnutí soudnictví jednou skupinou. Právníci pak vidí v zřízení NRS více rizik než pozitiv a obávají se zapouzdření soudní moci. Klíč k řešení problémů vidí spíše v otázce právnického vzdělávání a zvýšení kvality soudního rozhodování. Současné debaty o správě soudnictví ani poslední novely zákona o soudech a soudcích však bohužel na tyto klíčové problémy identifikované respondenty dosud nereagovaly.