"Fake news": Prague edition

The silence was awkward. My peers and I glanced around our classroom, if it should even be given such merit. It was a small bedroom wedged in the corner of a Marriott hotel in Prague, all the insides gutted and replaced with aging cushioned chairs. At the head of the room, our guest speaker, a brisk, older man named Jan Jirak, was smirking at me.

We had been discussing the current state of journalism in the Czech Republic, with a final point being made by Jirak that media freedom within the country was slowly weakening. The problem, he said, was not in media ownership, but rather in the independence of journalists themselves.

“What do you believe this means for the future of journalism in the Czech Republic?” I asked.

He looked to me, an eyebrow raised, before he shrugged and said, “Journalism is going to die.”

Back to the basics

Despite the Czech Republic being a democratic nation, there’s still a great deal of progress to be made to press freedom. In the former Czechoslovakia, before the fall of Communism, media was highly centralized and controlled. In fact, it was more like a vessel for propaganda.

Nowadays, the prime minister owns two papers, and while it is claimed no meddling occurs, many suspect otherwise. And in the wake of former Communist media, several newspapers were formed in an attempt to practice democratic journalism and to do so in an honest, credible way. Most of these would not last, however, with the only papers surviving being the ones during the Communist era. It just goes to show that the Czech people returned to what was familiar to them, no matter the bleakness of its history.

Looking to the future

The country is in a media crisis. With the president being pro-Russia and pro-China, and the prime minister owning the two largest newspapers in the country, there is a lot of pressure on journalists to report as those in power see fit.

This led me to the corner of a crowded Munich McDonald’s one Saturday. When the squeals of children calmed, I phoned Tomas Etzler, an Asia correspondent for Czech Television and freelance journalist for CNN, to hear his views on the prevailing problems in Czech journalism.

The major issues, he said, lies in both pressure on journalists from the top tiers of the political hierarchy as well as the deterioration of public trust in the media.

“What makes a good journalist?” he asked me. “There are two things. One is curiosity. Two is honesty. You have to have that hunger for information, you have to ask questions, and you have to know things. And you have to do it all honestly.”

Feeling bold and afraid, I presented Etzler with the same question I had asked Jirak. “So what do you project will happen to journalism in the country?”

He sighed. “I see some sort of movement within Czech society and journalism trying to focus on [creating] objective and reliable journalists,” he said, pausing afterward. “If the people who still believe in independent journalism are willing to work long hours for little money and continue to deliver, then there is hope.”

I felt a resurgence of pride in the journalism industry. While its future in the Czech Republic is uncertain, it can be rest assured that young journalists are rising up against the system, and fighting political fire with the credible word.

After all, a free press is the cornerstone of democracy, and the upcoming generation of writers is actively doing their part to see that it remains ingrained in the country’s new identity.

And to that I raise my french fries.