Jana Bobošíková

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Jana Bobošíková
Member of the European parliament
for the Czech Republic
Incumbent
Assumed office 
July 20, 2004
Born August 29, 1964 (1964-08-29) (age 43)
Prague, Czechoslovakia
Political party none
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Jana Bobošíková (born on 29 August 1964 in Prague) is a Czech politician and Member of the European Parliament and is Non-Inscrit in the European Parliament. She sits on many seats as : Committee on Regional Development, and is a substitute for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and a member of the Delegation to the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Cooperation Committee.

In Czech Republic she is mostly known for her aggressive involvement during political conflict in state owned television (2000-01).

The "Czech TV crisis" occurred at the end of 2000 and lasted until early 2001 as a battle for control of the airwaves, which included jamming, pirate broadcasts (either by the rebel Czech TV employees or by Bobosikova's team depending on whose side you were on) and accusations of censorship. On the evening during the Christmas holiday, viewers around the Czech Republic who had tuned into to the regular evening news broadcast watched the newscast broadcast by the news anchors they were used to being jammed and interrupted by Bobošíková, a former face at Czech TV sitting next to Jiří Hodač, who had been appointed general manager of Czech TV amid accusations by critics that he was close to Vaclav Klaus' Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and to the then director of private TV channel Nova, Vladimír Železný, and would undermine the editorial independence of the TV network.

During the Czech TV crisis, every time the regular Czech TV reporters, who occupied their studio and refused to recognize attempts by Bobošíková to fire them - and who were supported in their protest by politicians such as then President Vacláv Havel and by celebrities - tried to air their news broadcasts, Bobošíková and Hodač would jam the news broadcast either with a black screen stating in Czech that "An authorized signal has not been taken to the transmitter. Broadcasting will continue in a few minutes," or with propaganda news broadcasts featuring Bobošíková and a team she had hired. These broadcasts began being referred to as "Bobovize" and some even compared the jamming to the situation during the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia when Czech TV and Czech Radio were jammed by Russian propaganda describing the invaders as Liberators. On the otherhand, throughout the 2000/2001 Czech TV crisis supporters of Bobošíková, such as Klaus and then Czech Prime Minister Miloš Zeman, accused the Czech TV rebel reporters of breaking the law and of not being as independent as they claimed.

The black screens and jamming of the news broadcasts by Bobošíková brought tens of thousands of people to the streets of Prague and other Czech cities and towns, where they held demonstrations calling for restoration of freedom of the press, demanding an end to what they perceived as censorship at Czech TV by Bobošíková. The demonstrations even drew support from International organizations representing reporters and made world headlines. The people in the streets in the Czech Republic also called for the resignation of Bobošíková and of the allegedly politically biased general manager and former BBC employee Jiří Hodač. Hodač was even briefly hospitalized during the events.

The Czech TV crisis eventually ended in early 2001, following the departure from Czech TV by Hodač and Bobošíková under pressure from the street demonstration participants and at the request of the Czech Parliament, which had held an emergency session due to the crisis.

Most of the reporters who rebelled against Bobošíková are still at Czech TV today, including the current general manager Jiři Janeček, who was one of the news anchors who occupied the studio in protest. Bobošíková was later hired to moderate the political discussion program Sedmička on private TV Nova. She is now a member of the European Parliament.


[edit] Education

[edit] Career

  • 1989-2004: Presenter of television programmes on politics and economics
  • 1999: Adviser to the Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic[1]

See also: European Parliament election, 2004 (Czech Republic)

[edit] External links

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