"No, don't put the whole thing in there, lest we politically damage our way elsewhere," Prima TV's lawyer Mikešová, the right-hand woman of CEO Mark Singer, interjects in a report to go on air tonight. The report is about a text message from the then prime minister Andrej Babiš (ANO) - about his comments on the domestic carrier Smartwings in connection with the drawdown of billions in subsidies from the COVID programme. One sentence from the former prime minister reveals the TV station's dealings with government politicians at the start of the pandemic outbreak.
Like Prime Minister Babiš's letter to America, this censored part of the statement contained a crucial piece of information: that Prima TV itself and its management were probably violating very strict anti-video measures. At a time when the government is imposing a severe lockdown and state of emergency on the country's population, it is in the interests of the Prime Minister and his coalition partner, Jan Hamáček, to break the conditions and get the CNN Prima News media project off the ground as quickly as possible, in the interests of the hundreds of millions of dollars invested in the CNN Prima News media project.
I wasn't quite sure whether Andrej Babiš wrote the text message; it's hard to judge, since he himself usually doesn't use punctuation. Anyway, it came from his number and it is also a fact that the Prime Minister's statement drew my attention to the close relationship - to possible agreements between the Prime Minister, his team and the management of TV Prima...
If the TV station had broadcast the SMS, it would have admitted it to the people. It would have admitted that it was broadcasting about anti-epidemic measures and the vital need to comply with them, that it was broadcasting about the state of emergency, about what people could and could not do, and that it was probably violating the measures itself, with the participation of politicians - ex-Minister of the Interior Hamáček - and with the knowledge of the then Prime Minister.
And how did they solve it? They cancelled us - the investigative team... But either way, it must be added that one of the most affected sectors of the economy during the pandemic was, unfortunately, actually air transport (contrary to the media scaremongering).
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