Czech TV director says no laws were broken during news coverage

The General Director of Czech Television Petr Dvořák has terminated the work of a special panel which was meant to determine if there news coverage was influenced by editors for political purposes. Mr. Dvořák, who was supposed to inform the board of the public broadcaster about the findings of the panel, said that he was disbanding it because two of the five members of the panel resigned. He also said that he has determined that Czech Television’s reporting broke no laws or the broadcaster’s ethics code and that the head of news department has his full support and confidence. In early October a 23 member of the news staff at Czech TV signed a petition saying that on a dozen occasions a senior editor had interfered with their work, to the benefit of certain politicians, in particular President Miloš Zeman.