Life after the BBC

When the BBC ends its Czech service soon, the CR will lose a journalistic model by which other local news organizations have often been judged. Editor-in-Chief Vít Kolář of the Czech BBC told LN that he hopes members of his team will scatter into the Czech media and help change the atmosphere there. It's a bad sign that Kolář himself isn't interested in taking on the multi- year task of guiding some other local media shop to where he thinks it should be. It's also a bad sign that Host Václav Moravec of the BBC Interview admitted to a slight degree of self- censorship in his other capacity as debate-show host on Czech TV. This isn't the Balkans, as Premier Jiří Paroubek claimed, but neither are the Czech media a model of independence and Chinese walls (with barbed wire or otherwise). BBC alum can either struggle to change this as they move on, or they can take the path of least resistance (and get more job offers). [Czech Republic World Service Lidové noviny Czech Television Euro]