The Mathematics of Crime and the Crime of Censorship on the Czech Public Radio

ABSTRACT

The Mathematics of Crime, a 2018 series of podcasts by Magdalena Sodomkova and Brit Jense, had the best chance of becoming a star of investigative journalism on Czech public radio. But it was not the case. The case study looks into the circumstances of censorship which took place in the Czech Radio. The paper looks into the mechanisms of internal censorship introduced by the public institution itself. An important part of the study are references to the phenomenon of media capture, the meaning of “public interest” and situation of public service media in Czech Republic.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The Growing Threat of Soft Censorship Worldwide (2005) http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/growing-threat-soft-censorship.

2. Puddington (2017). pp. 188– 191.

3. Tabery (2019) www.respekt.cz/tydenik/2019/8/erik-tabery-jak-zachranit-media.

4. Puddington (2019). p. 274.

5. Dearman and Galloway (2005). p. 544.

6. Davis (2019). p. 5,1.

7. Yusra: Swim for Your Life. Radio documentary. BBC World Service. The Documentary Podcast 2020. Available at online https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0483b7y. About the protagonist, see also Yusra Mardini. enWikipedia.org. online https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusra_Mardini. Accessed 9 December 2019.

8. Attorney Robert Pelikán was the Minister of Justice from March 2015 to June 2018.

9. In the Czech Republic, photographs can be taken during a certain part of the trial, and an audio recording is kept of the entire trial. In addition to stenographers, this is another way of recording evidence of the trial. The reporters had access to the material on account of one of the convicted persons, who requested the audio recording as a basis for reopening the case. Key passages showing the immoral behavior of judges were mistakenly recorded after the trial.

10. The number of opinions officially issued by court experts, yet absurdly beyond human capacity, continues to be investigated, for example, by Vašek Peričevič, (2019), Ostrava’s Judicial Palermo, online https://pericevic.blog.idnes.cz/blog.aspx?c=701640. Accessed 25 August 2019.

11. Llinares et al. (2018)). p. 16.

12. According to an official statement made by the director of CRo Rene Zavoral on the 25th of April during the meeting of the Czech Radio Council, CRo spent around CZK 240,000 (EUR 9,300) on co-producing the documentary. In addition, CZK 250,000 (EUR 9,718) in grant money was provided by the Endowment Fund for Independent Journalism.

13. Motal (2019) https://www.nfnz.cz/aktuality/analyza-poradu-matematika-zlocinu-z-hlediska-dodrzeni-zasad-medialni-etiky/.

14. Parliamentary Assembly (1993) http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-en.asp?fileid=16414

15. Hošna (2019) https://informace.rozhlas.cz/cesky-rozhlas-cti-objektivitu-a-nestrannost-podcast-matematika-zlocinu-tak-8027670.

16. Winning the Prix Bohemia Radio has in turn revealed a detail symptomatic of the entire approach of Czech Radio on this affair. On the day when winners are announced, the winning program is always broadcast on Vltava, one of Czech Radio’s stations. However, it broke this tradition with The Mathematics of Crime (or its 1^st episode) in 2019, since editor-in-chief Jaroslava Haladová did not receive permission to broadcast the program.

17. Chivvis (2019). p. 209.

18. Šlerka (2019) https://www.nfnz.cz/aktuality/otevreny-dopis-zadost-o-odvysilani-poradu-matematika-zlocinu-v-souvislosti-s-vysledky-analyzy-poradu-matematika-zlocinu-z-hlediska-dodrzeni-zasad-medialni-etiky/.

19. Polák (2019) https://zpravy.aktualne.cz/domaci/matematika-zlocinu-stala-240-tisic-musi-se-upravit-k-vysilan/r~7107eeda682411e98aa4ac1f6b220ee8/.

20. Open letter: We admire the courage and dedication of Brit Jensen and Magdalena Sodomková (2019), Deník Referendum, Available online at http://denikreferendum.cz/clanek/29956-obdivujeme-odvahu-a-nasazeni-brit-jensen-a-magdaleny-sodomkove. Accessed 7 August 2019.

21. Schulz (2016) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/25/dead-certainty.

22. Kroupa (2017) www.irozhlas.cz/zpravy-domov/agrofert-dotace-holding-zemedelstvi-puda_1711280600_jra.

23. Rychlíková (2017)

24. Studený, Smatana (2017) https://plus.rozhlas.cz/dobre-utajeni-vietnamci-v-ceskych-tovarnach-6505271.

25. Gans (2018) https://insidestory.org.au/the-medias-pet/.

26. Berry (2015). pp. 299–309.

27. Heeremans (2018).

28. Hussain (2018) https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/common-good/>.

29. Nelson (2017). p. 152.

30. Petr Šabata’s living partner Veronika Křesťanová has worked since 2017 as the Vice-President of the Municipal Court in Prague. This court was loathe to communicate with the journalists if at all and provided incomplete information about its expert witness Prof. Jiří Straus, who has for many years been registered here as an expert witness.

31. Vlasatá (2019) http://denikreferendum.cz/clanek/29876-rozhovor-s-brit-jensen-a-magdalenou-sodomkovou-rozhlas-cenzuruje-nasi-praci.

32. The situation in public radio has long been monitored, for example, by the weekly Respekt. Mention of “normalization” and fear can be read in the article by Ivana Svobodová, (2018) Wagging the radio. Respekt 2018, 52. Available online at https://www.respekt.cz/tydenik/2019/1/tema-vrteti-rozhlasem. Accessed 29 December 2018.

33. Havel (1975).pp. 50– 84.